“The Legend of Ochi”: a fun fable about putting families back together

“The Legend of Ochi” is a family film that has some scary moments and some heartfelt ones as well. The movie does a great job with the puppets used to depict the Ochi and in developing their language. The movie is enjoyable enough, but doesn’t break any new ground thematically.

The story begins on the island of Carpathia. Yuri (Helena Zengel) is the daughter of Maxim (Willem Dafoe). The town they live in seems to have modern items such as automobiles but otherwise seems somewhat rustic if not dilapidated.

Yuri goes to the Library and finds a book about Carpathian myths. One of these relates to the Ochi who are depicted in an overblown demonic way in the illustration.

Maxim takes a group of boys and Yuri out in his truck to go hunt Ochi. Maxim believes that the Ochi are evil and have harmed humans. In his vehicle, there is a scanner that presumably detects motion.

When positive signs arise, the ragtag group goes into the forest to attack the Ochi. The Ochi are feeding and are arboreal as well as terrestrial. In particular, there is a focus on a baby Ochi clinging to his mother. He seems fascinated by bugs.

The onslaught against the Ochi begins. Fires end up being set and the Ochi attack back. No one on either side seems to be seriously hurt. The baby Ochi is seen hurtling through the trees.

The next day Maxim, an adopted boy named Petro (Finn Wolfhard), and Yuri are having dinner. Maxim and Yuri clearly do not get along. Yuri wants to visit her mother Dasha (Emily Watson) but is denied by her father. He asks her to go check the traps.

As she travels through the forest, Yuri discovers the baby Ochi in a trap with an injured limb. The Ochi reacts hostilely to her presence but she is able to extricate it and return home.

Having snuck into the house, Yuri tends to the wound. Both she and the baby are fascinated by her captive caterpillar. Yuri makes a decision to return the child to his mother. To do so, she must sneak out. Petro catches her as she leaves but lets her go.

On her journey, Yuri and Ochi enter a grocery store where all hell breaks loose when the Ochi is discovered. They manage to escape in a car on the way to her mother’s home. On the way, Yuri discovers that she can understand the Ochi’s language.

Meanwhile Maxim sees that Yuri is gone. He determines immediately to go to Dasha’s to retrieve her.

We see Dasha with her sheep on a nearly vertical hillside. She has a modest cabin and a truck. When Yuri arrives, Dasha shows her how she communicated on a large flute-like instrument the Ochi language to Yuri when Yuri was a child. More importantly, she has maps to the Ochi stronghold.

Will Yuri get the baby Ochi back to its mother? How much trouble will Maxim cause on the way? Will there be peace between the humans and the Ochi?

The puppetry used in this movie is spectacular. The Ochi are fully-formed and have distinct emotions. Their language is very musical and fluid which is a nice touch. The use of colors in the furry body covering of the creatures enhanced the design. The Ochi reminded me sometimes of baboons and sometimes of bats. The grace of their movements is another tribute to the handlers.

The baby Ochi in particular is just a joy in every scene in which it is present. Adorably cute, it does bite Yuri at one point in the grocery store so it has punch as well. It is sweet to see the two sleeping in the forest. The scariest scene for young children might be seeing the young Ochi in a trap.

The cinematography is spectacular. The various hillside scenes are practically vertiginous as the landscape is as vertical as it can be. The beauty of the environment in both its starkness and in its vegetation is well-portrayed. When you see Dasha with the sheep, you see someone willing to deal with a rugged life.

There is no doubt that in some ways this is a hero’s journey. In one sense, Yuri is seeking her mother whom she has not seen in a while. While there, she discovers previously hidden information about herself and her family. Then there is the segment of her journey to do the right thing and return an infant to its mother.

Helena Zengel does a very understated job for the most part. Her best scenes involve the one-on-one with the baby Ochi. It would be hard to tell that she is speaking to a puppet. The segments with her mother and at the end of the film show true emotional depth.

Another theme is the fractured family. It is revealed that this is due to different role expectations and a difficulty to communicate. How the film chooses to deal with this issue seemed a little predictable to me.

Willem Dafoe as Maxim seems to be chewing the scenery much of the time. He sometimes wears a ridiculous suit of armor which looks like it came out of a Halloween costume shop. His hold over his boys seemed abusive to me considering his monomania about the Ochi. I did not detect any complexity in his character as he seemed more an archetype in a fairy tale.

Emily Watson, another fine actor, seemed underused in her brief on-screen time. She gave off an earth-mother vibe but Dasha obviously was willing to abandon her daughter. Her role as the human expert on the Ochi is more a plot device than anything else.

The resolution of the film was both pleasing and predictable to me. There were a few surprises to be sure but ultimately I think that younger audiences should be given more credit. In some ways the enterprise reminded me of the simplified films I saw as a child on “The Wonderful World of Disney” on TV.

In sum, this movie does have some engaging moments. I loved everything about the Ochi and the skill of the puppeteers in creating them and manipulating them. The sometimes heavy-handedness and violence are unfortunate. So I would recommend this for tweens and above.

Three out of five stars

In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a shy farm girl named Yuri is raised to fear an elusive animal species known as Ochi. But when Yuri discovers a wounded baby Ochi has been left behind, she escapes on a quest to bring him home.

Cast: Helena Zengel and Finn Wolfhard with Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe
Written and Directed by: Isaiah Saxon