Isaiah Saxon said in an interview several years ago conducted from Trout Gulch the Santa Fe forest artist’s commune and studio for Encyclopedia Pictura that his north star heroes in filmmaking are Miyazaki, Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Lucas. The Legend of Ochi buzzes with the influence of those directors so intensely that it works in a kind of cinematic shorthand where it assumes that the story beats are so familiar they don’t require deep explanation. “Lonely girl meets and bonds with a mythical animal and through their adventures learns to express herself” is the basic story, and one we know all too well by now. However, the narrative of The Legend of Ochi isn’t what most viewers both young and older will resonate with. The film Isaiah Saxon has made is sublimely beautiful in it’s enchanting world building. Being immersed in Saxon’s Baltic region fantasy with all its pleasures and perils is gift to the senses. It barely matters that we understand the narrative framework as cliche, because of the sheer pleasure in witnessing Saxon’s immaculate craft.
Yuri (Helena Zengel) lives on the fictional island of Carpathia where change happens very slowly but a certain darkness is propelling a change in how the community functions. Her small village is still functioning mostly on an agrarian level and predators from the woods take flocks of sheep. Wolves and bears are common, but the thing the people fear most is the Ochi – a mythical group of primates who they blame for destroying families and livelihoods. Yuri’s father, Maxim (Willem Dafoe) is given the young sons of the village to train in hunting the Ochi, an elusive prey who according to Maxim “the devil dances” in their goblin eyes.
Maxim has become a zealot when it comes to hunting the Ochi who he blames for taking his wife and leaving him without the one thing a man needs most, a son. Maxim took in Petro (Finn Wolfhard) and raised him to be the primary hunter. When Yuri goes on her first hunt with the teen boy of the village she sees firsthand the damage Maxim and his “toy soldiers” wreak on the forest and the trilling Ochi. Arming adolescents with guns and knives and treating them like a sacred battalion protecting the village, Maxim has his own unquestioning army. Yuri is unhappy in her hunting trophy filled house where Maxim falls asleep every night with a bottle of alcohol and assures her that her absent mother abandoned them. “How many times do I have to tell you she left us?” Maxim yells, “She doesn’t want to see you.” Petro sits quietly in his “uniform” adorned with patches like a scout, watching the distance between Yuri and Maxim widen as she starts to question the truth of what her father has instilled in her for years. “It’s dumb,” Yuri snaps at her father.
Yuri is sent to check the traps and finds one is broken. She follows the blood trail and finds a baby Ochi she saw caught in the inferno lit by her father and his hunters the night before. Injured and innocent, Yuri takes the creature into her care by hiding him in her backpack. Yuri realises that the baby Ochi is scared, gentle, and needs protecting. If he is nothing like she’s been told the Ochi are, what other lies has she lived with? It’s now up to Yuri to leave her uncomfortable nest and go deep into the forest to find baby Ochi’s mother and bring him home.
A mishap in a supermarket leads to her being discovered with the baby and once again guns come out (does every teenager in the town own a rifle?). The Ochi bites her in fear and Yuri has to steal a car as the infection from the bite takes hold. Meanwhile, Maxim, dressed in a bizarre version of early Cossack armour gathers the troops declaring the Ochi have kidnapped Yuri. The boys pile in to his truck with the exception of Petro who tracks Yuri on a horse and seems glad to not be in Maxim’s company.
The bite seems to give Yuri the ability to communicate with baby Ochi through the trilling language. The moment they start speaking to each other is the moment Yuri begins to find her own voice with her innocent charge caring as much for her welfare as she does for his. Rapturous she can speak Ochi, Yuri doesn’t watch where she’s going and falls into a trap set by none other than her mother, the shepherdess Dasha (Emily Watson).
Dasha has very good reasons for leaving her husband (including a missing hand and his controlling temper) but she expected one day her daughter would find her, because that is how nature intended it. Dasha is fascinated by the Ochi and nature in general and is able to heal the bite (she has similar scarring on her hand). Yuri doesn’t want to be healed but Dasha explains that she taught Yuri the Ochi language years ago via a large flute. Just as mother and daughter begin to bond Yuri is disappointed that Dasha doesn’t support her quest to return the Ochi to his mother. “He’s not your friend, Ochi can’t be pets,” Dasha notes. They don’t sing to people outside their own family group and their language is pure emotion. Yuri replies with a scream, some pure emotion of her own and sets off to find her charge.
All of the above reads like a textbook in family and young adult storytelling, and admittedly it is. Yet the narrative triteness doesn’t dull the immensely wondrous world on screen. The simplest of stories which is unfortunately riddled with chiches is the armature Saxon utilises to show the pure emotion of his film through what he fleshes out through an impeccable eye for visual detail. Using almost entirely practical effects and hand operated puppetry the sheen of the great Jim Henson is reflected in Saxon’s work. The Ochi puppet feels like a real creature with its stunning design never dulled by cheap CGI. Saxon’s background as an artist, puppet maker, sculptor, and animation expert makes the fantasy of The Legend of Ochi appear as if it were made in the halcyon days of Amblin Entertainment. As much as Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, and Willem Dafoe give good to great performances, they are dwarfed by the puppets and sublime production design.
Isaiah Saxon has been dreaming of making The Legend of Ochi since at least 2015 and has been steadily building his film since then: perfecting his technique and his talent for matte paintings, superbly impressive details integrated into a grand vision, and through his work with musicians, understanding how and when to put in a music cue. The soundtrack by David Longstreth of The Dirty Projectors (who have worked with Encyclopedia Pictura on music videos) is the perfect woodwind heavy accompaniment to the resplendent visuals.
The Legend of Ochi is a lovely and often too straightforward film that deals with the need for humans to understand nature and let its complex and simple harmonies echo through all. Saxon’s view of the natural world is grand and also grounded, and children won’t miss the message that it is important to discover what the earth affords them gentleness and respect. The Legend of Ochi is nothing particularly new, but it is breathtaking with sparks of wonder and the director’s passionate devotion to craft lighting a well-trodden path.
Director: Isaiah Saxon
Cast: Helena Zengel, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson
Writer: Isaiah Saxon
Producers: Traci Carlson, Richard Peete, Isaiah Saxon, Jonathan Wang
Composer: David Longstreth
Cinematographer: Evan Prosofsky
Editor: Paul Rogers
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