There’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a paragon of childhood movie fantasy, and then there are the likes of The Goonies, perhaps The Neverending Story, maybe Labyrinth. These are lesser, imperfect examples of the genre that nevertheless—perhaps exactly because of their oddball imperfections—wedge their way into your childhood consciousness and refuse to leave. Consider them kiddie cult classics. The Legend of Ochi has a chance to be just such a film. Set on an island in the Black Sea, full of rutty roads and ruddy cheeks, the movie follows a farm girl (Helena Zengel) who has been raised to hate and fear the Ochi, a mythical, monkey-like species that supposedly lives in the mountains. When she encounters a wounded baby Ochi, however, she sets out to return it to its clan, with her militaristic father (Willem Dafoe) and a band of boy warriors in pursuit. Writer-director Isaiah Saxon, making his feature debut, previously specialized in animation-forward music videos for the likes of Bjork and Grizzly Bear. If that accounts for the ungainly narrative—at once overstuffed with characters and motivations and undercooked as fable—it surely also is the reason that The Legend of Ochi feels like few other films. Deeply saturated colors seem to seep from the fecund surroundings, while the flute-heavy score by David Longstreth casts a hypnotic spell. And while the baby Ochi is something of a Grogu-Gizmo hybrid, the use of puppetry and animatronics gives it an idiosyncratic scruffiness. It feels as if you’re encountering a new species, not watching a digitized fantasy film. Indeed, the Ochi—the movie as a whole—is delightfully weird enough to embed itself in some kid’s imagination and remain there all their life.
(4/20/2025)
