PG | 1h 36m | Fantasy, Family | 2025
“The Legend of Ochi” is a blend of “Borat,” “The Goonies,” “Gremlins,” and “E.T.” stirred into a swampy tea that sits in a Wes Anderson teacup. It’s even got one of Anderson’s favorite actors, Willem Dafoe, cheerfully ensconced in Dafoe’s wheelhouse of delightfully unhinged, Looney Tunes characters. It’s a wonderful little family film, if slightly damp and dreary.
Boratland
“The Legend of Ochi” is set in the fictitious land of Carpathia, which appears to be similar to Borat’s (Sasha Baron Cohen’s 2006 comedy) Kazakhstan, except situated in the foothills of what are possibly the Italian Alps. (It was shot largely in Romania, in rural areas of Transylvania.) It’s a dank, unwashed, hunter’s cabin-y, sheep-herding milieu, mostly, except that modern life has crept into the villages in the form of faux-Slavic versions of 7-Eleven and Walmart.
Carpathia happens to be home to both humans and outlandish fauna alike. Its animal kingdom includes neon-colored caterpillars and the primate-like, orange and blue Ochis. When young, Ochis look like tarsiers or long-eared bush babies. But they eventually grow to the size of silverback gorillas. At that point, their formidable fangs become a problem.
Yuri
A shy farm girl named Yuri (German actress Helena Zengel) has a dad, Maxim (Dafoe), who delights in Ochi hunts. After befriending an injured Ochi infant and gaining its trust, Yuri rebels against her father’s motto of “The only good Ochi is a dead Ochi” (I just made that up) and sets off on a journey to reunite the creature with its clan.
She’s closely trailed throughout by Maxim, her adoptive brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard), and a motley crew of young village boys who, yearning for a manhood rite of passage, carry guns and wear war paint. Maxim is their feckless leader, who hilariously dons (with great seriousness) what appears to be plastic Roman Legion Halloween costume armor, ostensibly from the local Borat-mart, when leading the Kazakhstan Lost Boys into battle against the Ochi. “Remember every word like it was the last drop of your mother’s milk!” he exhorts.
On her journey through the dark and fantastical alpine woodlands, Yuri and the baby Ochi encounter many dangers. They eventually cross paths with a witchy, sheep-herding woman named Dasha (Emily Watson), who, it turns out, speaks the language of the Ochi.
‘The Legend of Ochi’
Writer-director Isaiah Saxon crafts a world rich with imagination and atmosphere, wherein Yuri discovers hidden talents that allow her to communicate with the Ochi. This is quite delightful, as is the caretaking and protectiveness she offers the infant Ochi and its tribe.First and foremost, “The Legend of Ochi” is a film about family. That is, chosen and biological. Yuri discovers that her chosen family, while looking nothing like her, share a similar heart and mind nature. She finds it difficult to fit into her father’s killer culture and is ready to eschew humans altogether, until she meets the mysterious Dasha.
“The Legend of Ochi” is also an environmentalist tale, as well as being full of semi-charming affectations, such as Yuri’s being a fan of a black metal band called “Hell Throne.” Attempting to get back in her good graces, Maxim at one point says, “I listened to Hell Throne! It was cool.” Which is an extremely Wes Anderson thing to say. I also appreciated Yuri’s “Napoleon Dynamite”-type pink-and-blue moon boots.
“The Legend of Ochi” suggests the boundlessness of a child’s capacity for imagination. Every choice in the film harkens back to its mission of broadcasting the empathy and compassion Yuri feels when she discovers her superpower of communicating with creatures of another species far removed from her own. This sincere treatment of fairy-tale-like mythic material provides age-spanning movie magic, although the climate might be just a tad too uncomfortably swampy, greasy, snowy, and chilly to be considered light children’s fare.
