The Legend of Ochi

The trailer for The Legend of Ochi was absolutely beautiful so I decided to see a matinee at the Broadway yesterday afternoon.  I mostly loved this throwback to the adventure movies of my youth.  Yuri (Helena Zengel) is a young farm girl living on Carpathia, an isolated island in the Black Sea.  The inhabitants share the island with mysterious creatures, known as ochi, that are feared and hunted.  Yuri's father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) is especially zealous in his desire to hunt them down and trains a group of boys, including an orphan he has adopted named Petro (Finn Wolfhard), who he takes out on patrol every night.  Yuri rejects much of what her father says so, when she finds a baby ochi in one of his traps, she releases it and smuggles it home.  Yuri interacts with the baby and, when she realizes that it is a gentle creature, she decides to try and find its family.  On the journey, she encounters her mother Dasha (Emily Watson), who left the family because of Maxim's brutality, and discovers that she has studied the ochi extensively.  Her father hates them and her mother respects them but it is Yuri who truly understands the ochi and it is her bond that will ultimately bring about acceptance.  The theme of fearing what is different is not new but it is so gorgeously rendered that I was absolutely enchanted by Yuri’s quest.  I loved all of the stunning visuals of the island and the puppets are amazing (the baby ochi is adorable).  The relationship that develops between Yuri and the creature is so moving because there are many parallels between them and I think the lack of dialogue is really effective (she communicates with the ochi in their language) although some might find the pace sluggish as a result.  I really enjoyed the Eastern European influences because they make the story feel like a fairy tale (Maxim hunts the ochi wearing medieval armor) but the music is sometimes overpowering.  Zengel is luminous and Dafoe is as unhinged as ever but I especially liked Watson's performance (Wolfhard has very little to do and his character's motivations are very ambiguous).  However, I found the scene in a grocery store to be incredibly jarring.  I think it is included as commentary about the encroachment of the modern world into traditional life on the island but this theme is underdeveloped and the scene feels like it belongs in a completely different movie.  I found this dark fantasy to be very magical most of the time and would recommend it but I seem to like it more than most.