Preview screenings of 'Ochi', the first family fantasy from A24, have already started in select cinemas across the country. Next week, Isaiah Saxon's film will officially be released in Russian theaters. About what kind of unknown creature has appear...
At the center of the plot is a teenage girl, Yuraia (Helena Zengel), living on the island state of Carpathia. Her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) leads a small squad of boys fighting against Ochi — fairy-tale beasts inhabiting a mysterious forest. During one of these forays into their territory, a cub gets injured by a trap. The next day, Yuraia picks up the animal and decides to return it to its mother. Soon, the girl and the little Ochi find common ground and become best friends, while her father, worried about his daughter's disappearance, sets off with his squad to find her. The man has his own scores to settle with the fluffy creatures: because of them, he divorced his wife (Emily Watson).
And so the day has come when the independent studio A24 decided to venture into the segment of family entertainment cinema. If you think about it, this event is not as out of the ordinary as it might seem at first glance. Two years ago, company representatives announced that in the future they intend to focus on mass-market products, not just elevated horror and arthouse dramas. On one hand, this is a natural result of their growing influence in the industry; on the other, it is a rather risky endeavor, because by stepping onto the path of commerce, there is a high chance of losing their uniqueness.
However, let us immediately note that these concerns are not yet confirmed. Although 'Ochi' is aimed at a much wider target audience than other studio projects, it is still too strange (in a good sense) to stand alongside 'Minecraft: The Movie'. From the very first minutes, it becomes obvious that no one other than the adventurers from A24 would have funded such a whimsical fairy tale.
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Open materialThe fact that the debut film of Isaiah Saxon has no source material indicates that we are looking at a rare, almost Red Book species in the family fantasy genre. Nowadays, wherever you look, there are only adaptations and new interpretations, while original stories are as rare as hen's teeth. To be fair, the new film also cannot boast of breaking templates, but for lack of anything better, it looks extremely exotic.
Nevertheless, one very specific analogy will likely bother you during the viewing. It is hard to shake the feeling that the plot of 'Ochi' resembles a loose rewrite of the first part of 'How to Train Your Dragon'. Judge for yourself: on an island where people and fantasy creatures have been at odds for centuries, a child protagonist befriends an injured animal, which greatly displeases his warrior father. To make you fully convinced of the legitimacy of this comparison, let us add that the lair of the beasts is located in a cave system. True, do not expect as epic a climax as in the masterpiece of Dean DeBlois.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of differences, and the main one is, of course, the setting. While in the cult Dreamworks cartoon the events unfolded in medieval Scandinavia, in the reviewed film they take place in a fictional Eastern European country. In the world of 'Ochi', characters ride a giant SUV, listen to the radio, and shop at the retail chain 'Kurkamarket'. Even an Orthodox church briefly appears on screen.
Paradoxically, the American film has much more Slavic flavor than the fairy-tale blockbusters of domestic production. Our viewers will surely smile when they see Willem Dafoe (a notable lover of Russian proverbs!) in chainmail, armor, and a helmet, as if borrowed from the set of . And the grown-up Finn Wolfhard could easily be mistaken for our Mark Eidelstein , which also, as they say, 'plus vibe activity' .
However, even the heartwarming images and tunes cannot compete with the main conqueror of human hearts — the baby Ochi. This bizarre cross between a Sichuan monkey, Grogu from , and a Mogwai from 'Gremlins' with the mannerisms of Spielberg's E.T. simply cannot help but evoke tenderness in viewers. We don't know if A24 has started producing plush toys of it, but it would certainly bring them considerable profit.
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Credit must be given to the film: despite all its extravagance and at the same time simplicity, there is room for edifying lessons intended more for adults than for children. The protagonist's parents failed to save their marriage because they spoke different languages, but when their daughter was in danger, words were not needed to understand each other. In addition, 'Ochi' also has a more obvious message against discrimination of any 'otherness', which, of course, is banal but never superfluous.
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