Not all cinema exists to tell a story. Certain filmmakers may refer to themselves as storytellers, and certain writers on may claim that the story is the most important aspect of a film, but the boundaries of cinema are so fluid, and the history of cinema so vast, that it’d be ignorant, quite simply, to insist on all films telling a “story,” according to its conventional definition. Great experimental filmmakers of past and present, from Maya Deren to Stan Brakhage to Daïchi Saïto, have wielded the capabilities of cinema to explore artistic and technical possibilities, and to craft works perhaps better described as experiences than as stories. The expectation of any film, then, ought less to be that it tells a story, and more that it succeeds on its own terms.
That is to say, if you’re going to tell a story, you’d better tell it well. Isaiah Saxon’s The Legend of Ochi opens with great promise — a rousing, idiosyncratic score by David Longstreth accompanying a montage of striking, brightly-hued images, production designer Jason Kisvarday’s vibrant sets captured sumptuously by cinematographer Evan Prosofsky’s richly saturated compositions. There’s wonder in the gently fantastical imagery, and tantalizing foreboding in a voiceover, setting a scene of an isolated island community, its ancient traditions beset both by the swift encroachment of modern life and by a mysterious, monstrous foe residing in the surrounding woodlands. It’s a fairly familiar concept, but these opening few minutes are so beautifully realized that one forgives the familiarity, and only wonders what further wonders may be in store.
And there are indeed plenty more wonders throughout The Legend of Ochi. But there’s a story to be told here too, and no amount of imagination nor artistic proficiency can make up for what’s lacking if it’s not told well. Lack is in unfortunate abundance in this film, primarily narrative lack — Saxon sticks to the familiarity of his premise, where a teenage girl, Yuri (Helena Zengel), escapes to the wilderness, having rescued a young ochi, one of the creatures her small community both fears and fights, facing peril and discovering the truth about these strange animals as her father (Willem Dafoe) seeks both to retrieve her and to annihilate the ochi. It’s both a lack of fresh narrative ideas and a lack of development, as Saxon jumps from prescribed set piece to prescribed set piece; it’d feel like a breathless charge through each plot point did they not all feel so inevitable. Each character isn’t so much an entity in their own right as they are necessitated by the plot, and any deeper contextual, historical, or emotional information about them is left to the viewer to ascribe. It’s as though Saxon knows we’ve seen characters like this before and heard stories like this before, so we can fill in the empty spaces ourselves.
Thus, The Legend of Ochi becomes a distinctly deflating watch, opening as it does with such promise, then offering no new sustenance for the audience’s attention as it moves through its narrative. The same delights of its first few scenes thankfully remain throughout, but their impact is dulled somewhat by repetition, and more so by the futility of their application. Such marvellous style and technical excellence surely deserves better justification for its use than a tale as rote and simplistic as this. It’s genuinely frustrating to see how Saxon and his team can craft something so thrillingly beautiful and waste it on a film whose imagination seemingly ceases with those craft elements. Viewed objectively and out of context, there are many truly splendid details here, and Saxon certainly knows how to create mood and tone through sound and image; a shot of an arrow passing narrowly by an ochi in a battle scene is vivid and kinetic, and a shot of Yuri laid down on a patch of moss has a rich, solemn warmth reminiscent of the greenhouse scenes from Claire Denis’ High Life. In so many ways, The Legend of Ochi is a lovely film, full of exquisite stylistic spectacles, and yet it disappoints, precisely because those spectacles are in service of something quite mundane.
If viewed as an experience, then, rather than a story, it’s undeniable that there’s considerable worth to Saxon’s film. But the director isn’t trying to redefine film as a form, nor is he trying to invent something completely new like the great experimental filmmakers — he’s working within extremely well-established definitions, and his inventions are largely superficial, which strictly limits said worth. A first-time feature director, Saxon is clearly highly skilled in many key aspects of filmmaking, honed over a number of short films in his filmography to date. But, at feature length, his storytelling here is flaccid, burdened both by its conventionality and by its deficiency in development. The potential for greatness is present, but not until Saxon figures out how to tell a story, and tell it well. .
DIRECTOR: Isaiah Saxon; CAST: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe; DISTRIBUTOR: A24; IN THEATERS: April 25; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 36 min.
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