Helena Zengel in “The Legend of Ochi.” Credit: A24 via TNS
“Style over substance” is a cliche usually associated with a negative connotation, but when the style is so fresh and distinct that it effectively masks the substance’s flaws, it’s not necessarily a bad trait.
This is the case with A24’s “The Legend of Ochi,” a movie that feels like a walk through a greenhouse and a breath of fresh air, even if its plot leaves more to be desired.
“The Legend of Ochi” takes place on a remote island where humans are at odds with a species they believe to be demons called the “Ochi” — creatures that look like equal parts orangutan, pug and Baby Yoda. When the lead teenage heroine Yuri (Helena Zengal) discovers the Ochi may be more innocent than she was led to believe, she spends the brisk 95-minute runtime trying to rehabilitate an infant Ochi that was injured in a hunt led by her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) and adopted brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard).
Similar to the creature design of the idiosyncratic Ochi themselves, “The Legend of Ochi” is a conglomeration of many different ideas and inspirations.
When it comes to the art design of the film and its cinematography, this jumble of imagination is a wild success, sprouting a beautiful and refreshing cinematic world. The fictional island of Carpathia features dense, luscious forests and broad mountain ranges, basked in a dewey haze that adds an otherworldly atmosphere over the whole setting.
The film’s color palette is bold, mostly focusing on Kubrick-style primary colors for the shots of the human world, from houses to grocery stores to articles of clothing. Notably, the primaries are offset not by a sterile Kubrick white, but instead by the deep greens of the natural world, visually signifying the stark difference between the lives of the humans and the Ochi.
Though the muddle of inspiration leads to a gorgeous final product in terms of the film’s appearance, the same cannot be said for the patchwork plot. “The Legend of Ochi” is a little bit “E.T,” some parts “Labyrinth” — especially due to its puppetry — and other times reminiscent of a live-action Studio Ghibli movie.
The “child rescuing a small mythical creature” trope is a bit played out at this point, and “The Legend of Ochi” doesn’t do much to elaborate upon it. It once again takes the found-family route, but doesn’t wrap it up in a fully satisfying way.
Dafoe is charismatic as the bumbling-but-dangerous fool who leads a troop of children to hunt the Ochi, but there isn’t enough balance between his incompetence and the genuine violence that occurs in some scenes for the audience to ever know when to take him seriously. The movie is also painfully loud in some of these hunting scenes, which is a sometimes unwelcome and sharp contrast from the more zen shots of the Ochi in their natural habitats.
Still, “The Legend of Ochi” is a welcome breath of earthy, dewey, air despite its shortcomings. One of its greatest strengths is its short runtime, meaning that no one will be sick of its atmosphere by the time the credits roll. It’s a memorable movie that will leave audiences with a newfound appreciation for all the green trees and small animals in their lives.
Rating: 3/5
