Reviewed on January 29th at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival – Family Matinee. 96 Mins
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Cast: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe
Director: Isaiah Saxon
In Irish Cinemas: 25th April 2025
Few cinematic experiences are as enchanting—or elusive—as when a film fully immerses us in an alternate world, dissolving our scepticism like sugar on the tongue. It’s a rare alchemy, requiring both technical precision and emotional authenticity. First-time feature director Isaiah Saxon sets out to conjure just such a spell with The Legend of Ochi, a mist-draped, cryptozoological fable that wades into the mythic waters once tread by Miyazaki and early Spielberg—the Spielberg of E.T. and Gremlins, not Lincoln or Bridge of Spies.
Saxon approaches the task with the intensity of a true artisan, combining handcrafted visuals, practical effects, and digital wizardry with lush, on-location shooting in the Carpathians. The result is a film that brims with texture and care. The narrative—an emotionally sincere, lightly sardonic tale of a sullen teen forming a bond with an endangered, furry forest creature—echoes the best of storybook fantasy. And yet, for all its meticulous world-building, the film sometimes overwhelms the heart with spectacle. At a certain point, you begin to notice the seams: where the natural ends and the digital starts. It’s a form of cinematic admiration that’s more clinical than transportive.
High in the cloud-draped mountains of a remote island society, we meet Yuri (Helena Zengel), an outlier in a patriarchal, motherless household. She’s a quiet observer with a rebellious streak, visibly repelled by the macho, weaponised traditions embraced by her father, Maxim (a gloriously weathered Willem Dafoe), and meekly tolerated by her older brother, Petro (Finn Wolfhard, dialled in with quiet sympathy). Maxim, decked out like a medieval cosplayer, is fixated on leading hunts for the elusive ochi—mysterious, simian-like creatures blamed for various village misfortunes. During dinner, Yuri’s deadpan dismissal of the latest futile chase is delivered with a bone-dry grumble: “It’s stupid.” The line slices through fantasy with a welcome jolt of realism.
But fantasy soon finds her anyway. While checking bear traps, Yuri discovers an injured, big-eared baby ochi hiding in a pit, its leg bloodied and its cries raw with fear. She smuggles the creature home in her backpack, nursing it with improvised tenderness. What begins as a quiet act of rebellion soon evolves into a quest: to return the beast to its kin. Her mission, however, is more than altruistic—it’s a desperate bid to escape the stifling shadows of her grief-stricken home.
As their journey unfolds, the film takes a surreal turn. The language barrier between girl and beast inexplicably collapses—an unexplained, possibly metaphorical moment left refreshingly uninterrogated. Later, Yuri stumbles upon a revelation that ties the personal to the mythic: her long-absent mother, presumed gone, is alive and tending sheep in solitude—and, as it turns out, a scholar of ochi lore. Played by Emily Watson with ragged gravitas, the mother symbolises exile and quiet wisdom. Unfortunately, she’s also saddled with the script’s weakest burden: the exposition dump. Like many folk fantasies with ecological undertones, the film explains its magic too much when it should be trusting the viewer to feel it.
There’s no doubt Saxon is a visual stylist. A veteran of music videos, he follows in the footsteps of Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, blending tactile whimsy with melancholic edges. Cinematographer Evan Prosofsky paints in earthy tones and misty glows, making the film a rich feast for the eyes. There’s real magic in how puppetry is used—less as a retro gimmick, more as an emotional bridge to another world. It’s tactile, specific, and deeply intimate.
But while The Legend of Ochi dazzles, it doesn’t quite move. Its characters often feel like pieces on a meticulously arranged board—actors fulfilling visual roles rather than embodying emotional arcs. Even the magnificent, surging orchestral score by David Longstreth, channelling John Williams through an avant-garde filter, sometimes strains too hard for grandeur, overwhelming rather than enhancing. The result is a beautiful diorama of a film—complex, charming, and visually inventive—but ultimately more admired than loved.
Ultimately, The Legend of Ochi is like a snow globe: captivating to look at, intricately crafted, and rich with metaphor—but the glass remains unbroken. We gaze in, fascinated, but never fully step inside.
Overall: 6/10
Movie Reviewer
