2 days ago
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The Legend of Ochi creates such a complete visual experience that studio heads who have led countless multimillion-dollar trips to the green-screen warehouse should hang their heads in shame when they see it.
It’s not that writer-director Isaiah Saxon and his collaborators have abstained, monk-like, from modern technology in assembling this children’s fantasy film; though it consciously throws back to puppetry, matte paintings and other practical effects that were more common in live-action family films of the 1980s, The Legend of Ochi clearly makes use of digital tricks, too. (When its trailer first dropped, online hordes were even convinced – wholly incorrectly – that its relatively low-budget world-building must be the product of generative AI tech.) But all of these non-AI techniques, as well as vivid location shooting in Romania, have been pulled together with an immense and immersive craft that could serve as an inspirational visual-effects demo reel for those jaded with CG gunk.
The setting reflects a hybrid approach, too. The movie takes place on a fictional island of the Black Sea called Carpathia that exists somewhere between a centuries-old village and a more contemporary small town. (It accommodates both a wealth of natural forest and a brightly colored, well-stocked minimart.) Isolated from much of the world but not its instincts toward violence, Maxim (Willem Dafoe) trains a group of young boys, halfway between playing dress-up and serving in an actual militia, to hunt the Ochi, supposedly fearsome creatures who menace local farms. But when Yuri (Helena Zengel), Maxim’s withdrawn daughter, comes across a baby Ochi, she quickly realizes that, despite its prominent fangs and hissing, it’s not any more inherently dangerous than any number of animals (man included). In fact, this Ochi needs her help, and she sets out to return the creature to its family.
In a movie of visual effects wonders, the Ochi puppet stands out; like Gizmo from Gremlins and Grogu from The Mandalorian, both clear reference points for the design, the baby Ochi represents an apex of engineered cuteness. The film-makers understand that this quality is only enhanced by allowing the creature some animal instincts; it’s adorable, but it’s got teeth. Yuri, then, makes a strong spiritual guardian to the Ochi; though she’s a quiet character, Zengel has a serious-faced unruliness about her that holds the screen – and makes her character a clear relation to Emily Watson, who turns up as Yuri’s estranged mother.
The Legend of Ochi recalls some 80s sorta-classics in less flattering ways, too. For some adults rewatching mainstream or cult classics of the era such as The NeverEnding Story or Return to Oz, the sheer imagineering on display may no longer fully obscure the limitations of the human performances or, honestly, the tedium of the trundling, episodic storytelling style. (Return to Oz is a gorgeous movie that spends a solid 20 minutes dithering around in a cave for its climax.) The acting isn’t a problem in Ochi; it scarcely could be, with Dafoe and Watson on hand. But is it churlish to suggest that around the time it should be kicking into gear, with Yuri and the Ochi on their perilous journey through the wilderness, the movie gets a little … dull? Rather than building to an ET-like emotional crescendo, it loses momentum as it goes.
Though it’s admirable that Saxon doesn’t attempt to stack the deck by anthropomorphizing the Ochi more than necessary, it also means that the emotional core of story stays slightly remote. Yuri and the creature are clearly attached to one another while lacking a signature locked-in emotional bonding scene. The closest moment is when Yuri realizes, with much glee, that she can communicate with the creature through birdcall-like sound, something she later learns that her mother has been studying, too.
This should be a deeply touching moment of intergenerational, cross-species understanding. Yet it’s treated more as a technical triumph than a truly emotional one, and that’s true of the film as a whole. The soul of the movie isn’t particularly in the human/creature relationship at its center, but in the stunning craftsmanship that surrounds (and in the creature’s case, creates) them. If that makes the movie less of a high-water mark than a masterpiece like ET, it’s also an anomaly in a world where US children’s films are so intent on prodding and goading their audiences into predetermined reactions. Sometimes genuine awe is enough.
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The Legend of Ochi is released in New York and LA on 18 April and nationwide in the US and in the UK on 25 April, with an Australian date yet to be announced.
