The Legend of Ochi

On the island of Carpathia, young Yuri (Helena Zengel) has been taught by her father (Willem Dafoe) that a species known as the Ochi
are to be hunted down with prejudice, but when she finds an injured Ochi baby and bonds with it, Yuri rebels, setting out to reunite the
creature with its parents and change instilled perceptions of "The Legend of Ochi."

Laura's Review: B

Writer/director Isaiah Saxon introduces his feature film debut informing us that no CGI was used, that it was shot in the Carpathian mountains of Romania and that kids know better than their parents. And indeed, in this lovely fable about the glories of the natural world and the bond between a child and its mother, the rebellious Yuri is on a righteous path, her father Maxim bent on annihilation of a species based on supposition. The movie transports that real mountainous area to a mythical island called Carpathia that feels Scandinavian, partially due to its youth's embrace of heavy metal in a film whose musicality is its most essential ingredient.

In the opening segment after Saxon's personal note, Yuri informs us in voice over that while she's never seen an ochi, she's heard their calls emanating down from the mountains at night. The creatures communicate in a language that sounds like high-pitched song. But according to Maxim, who has assembled his own version of seven dwarves with adopted teenaged son Petro (Finn Wolfhard) training six younger boys in the art of hunting and fighting ochi, the creatures are responsible for killing livestock and all other manner of ills befalling the villagers, including the taking of his wife. After ceremoniously gifting Yuri with her grandfather's knife for her first hunt, he'll don a metal helmet that looks like a cross between Viking wear and WWI era German military gear along with ochi fur-trimmed armor and set off with his merry band of youngsters to invade ochi territory, shooting at the creatures' glowing eyes and setting trees in which babies have hidden ablaze. The next morning, all will be lectured for not having killed a single one.

Yuri will be sent out to check traps and will find one of those terrified baby ochis with its leg ensnared. Carrying it home in her backpack, she'll bond with the creature after watching it gently place one of her pet caterpillars on a leaf in her aquarium. 'You're not like they say,' she tells it, but when it hears the boys shooting outside, it draws their attention with its terrified screams and Petro, who Yuri has observed is 'only nice when no one's looking,' crashes into her room, rifle at the ready, just in time to see her defiantly climb out the window with the ochi.

Yuri, whose clear blue eyes and blond hair are reflected in the ochi's blue facial color pattern and reddish fur, has a series of misadventures with the young charge she hopes to return to its home, a catastrophe in a grocery store resulting in the startled creature biting her on the arm. This results in a suspicious looking welt which the ochi directs her to cure by eating a live beetle and once she gets past her revulsion, she finds she is now able to communicate with the ochi using its own musical tones. But while the two will be split up when Yuri lands in a trap pit, she will be surprised to find herself rescued by her mother, Dasha (Emily Watson), a lone shepherd who has learned much living closer to the ochi, but whose reclusive lifestyle has hardened her to sentiment.

Saxon's family drama is elevated by its stunning landscapes and artfully puppeteered ochi, who often convince as living creatures (the young one at the story's center looks an awful lot like "Gremlin's" Gizmo while the adults more closely resemble apes), but the film's most notable aspect is its music,  David Longstreth's score evolving from percussive tension to fairy tale flutes and harp, the sentimental song Maxim sings along with on the radio much to his daughter's disdain revealed to be that of the ochi when Dasha plays it on her flute. The musical communication of the ochi themselves recall Tuvan throat singing crossed with both the lilt of Spielberg's "E.T." alien and the spaceship emanations of "Close Encounters."

While Saxon answers some questions (Dasha reveals what is harming their sheep), others are left for us to imagine, but rest assured, in the end, the kids are all alright. "The Legend of Ochi" is a wonderfully old-fashioned, hand-crafted family film that leaves us in a magical place.

A25 released "The Legend of Ochi" in select theaters on 4/18/25, opening wide on 4/25/25.