The Locarno Film Festival never ceases to surprise me. The eclectic programming makes it so that you’re never seeing two films that are wholly alike. In this dispatch, for instance, are three works that couldn’t be more different: a moving coming-of-age film, a searing critique of AI, and a lighthearted throwback Western. And while I’m recommending all of these pictures to varying degrees, I’m not sure I’d recommend anyone watching them back-to-back-to-back for fear of experiencing too many extreme tonal whiplashes. The lone feature binding them all together, in fact, is their ambition within their respective sandboxes.    

There is a pulsating ache at the heart of writer/director Sophy Romvari’s assured feature debut “Blue Heron” that hits with such precision, it could break you open from the inside. See, there is a fine line between anger and regret, which can cause one to masquerade as the other. Romvari’s fractal film keenly actualizes the slide between both poles through an ingenious memory play structure and a startlingly raw vulnerability. The film, which is set to head to the Toronto International Film Festival next, isn’t just a highlight of Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente section. It’s also a film that so deftly wields the best qualities of cinema to shake tightened emotions, one can scarcely escape without exposing their own past personal pain.  

Romvari begins her film with a confession. “It’s true I spent most of my life being angry at him,” the narrator (Amy Zimmer) explains as she points her camera phone from a cliff down toward a car winding through a woodland road. “The older I get, the more I feel like I never even knew him at all.” Soon, we learn that this vehicle is occupied by a Canadian-Hungarian family, comprising three sons, a daughter, a mother (Iringó Réti), and a father (Ádám Tompa). The eldest son, Jeremy (Erik Beddoes), is usually moody and aloof. The father and mother often fret about Jeremy’s unruliness, which stems from a mental illness that no one can quite name. Although Sasha (Eylul Guven) is our protagonist, we’re not always looking at the world directly through her young perspective. Sometimes we see it from the dad’s camcorder or reflected in windows. The camera will sometimes drift and wander away through elaborate pans, maintaining a point of view that often recalls Max Ophüls, particularly during the opening scene of “The Earrings of Madame de…”

At first, it seems quite clear where Romvari’s film is heading, which could cause a glib viewer to hurriedly equate this intense coming-of-age film with works that blend memory and pain, like “Aftersun” or “All of Us Strangers.” But just as we feel like we’ve learned plenty about Jeremy’s rebelliousness and possible suicidal ideations, Romvari pulls the rug out from under us. The second half of “Blue Heron” becomes less narratively stable, nipping and tugging the past and the present together until they’re nearly indistinguishable.

Romvari’s documentary short, “Still Processing,” which examines the grief caused by the death of the filmmaker’s brothers, serves as a thematic precursor to “Blue Heron.” And yet, this film doesn’t suggest a reworking of formerly explored ground, but the capturing of further revelations mined from a greater passage of time. The documentary-inspired aesthetic language is similarly employed yet subverted, objective yet evocative. By the end, what’s found isn’t an understanding of what happened, but an acceptance of the person who lived it.         

I’m going to try to describe Radu Jude’s “Dracula” in the simplest way possible: It’s pretty fucking nuts. For one, if you’re arriving at his film expecting a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s material, well, I’m not sure why you’d expect that from the director who made “Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn.” Rather, the film serves as a continuation of the Romanian filmmaker’s Fake News-TikTok critique “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.” Like that film, the writer/director disavows good taste while interrogating politics, economics, history, and his local culture for a media studies treatise that leaves no one unscathed. Rather than using TikTok as his primary tool for satire, however, here Jude leans on generative AI. The move is a risky gambit, one that could either be lapped up by AI cultists or dismissed by ardent cinephiles. 

Jude, however, might not think he’s in any danger. After all, the joke is pretty self-evident: the film follows a director (Adonis Tanța) whose lack of talent causes him to turn to AI to manufacture a version of “Dracula” that’ll win him Hollywood adulation. Though there is an A-plot, which involves a late-night Romanian Dracula show starring an impotent actor (Gabriel Spahiu) and his vivacious Vampira (Oana Maria Zaharia) that goes horribly wrong—there are also B thru Z plots too. These are inspired by the prompts the director asks AI to render. We jeer and we laugh as the computer doesn’t come remotely close to pulling off standard filmmaking techniques, tonal awareness, or even specific genres. When the director asks the DR. AI JUDDEX 0.0 to make a sexy lesbian vampire flick, it admits to not having functions for diversity because it was manufactured in the European market. At another point, he attempts to remake F. W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” only for the computer to reimagine the classic as commercials for vitamins, tourism, and porn. Late,r when he wants DR. AI JUDDEX 0.0 to make a silent film, only half the film is silent.   

None of the Draculas are played by the same person, the shots are sometimes out of focus, and the extras are so under-rendered they often appear as cardboard standees. Sometimes the film is overwhelmingly grotesque, especially whenever a flurry of generative AI stills flash past with the distastefulness of horseradish on cherry pie. The point is clear: Jude hates AI. And so he’s made an entire film to show just how bad it really is. 

Many will probably object to Jude’s lampoonish method because it might suggest to pro-AI people that it’s possible to make a three-hour film like Jude’s with the same technology. But even with “Dracula” possessing the hallmarks of Jude’s tonal approach: lots of sex (there’s one section where a farmer makes a crop of dicks), plenty of cursing, and knowingly uncouth humor—his more serious political arguments lack refinement, appearing to be lax and nearly unfinished. And maybe for this film, that’s a feature, not a glitch. Jude tried AI, and he made a worse film for it, which might be among the rare examples of a director taking several steps back to make a film that’ll be studied for decades. 

One of the odder films at Locarno might be Duwayne Dunham’s fantastical Western “Legend of the Happy Worker.” It’s a knowingly earnest, kitschy work whose cartoonish approach sticks out from the more experimental films being presented here. The quirky adventure adapted from the same-titled S.E. Feinberg play was produced by David Lynch, whose collaborations with Dunham included editing “Blue Velvet” and “Wild at Heart,” as well as directing several episodes of “Twin Peaks.” While “Legend of the Happy Worker” doesn’t reach those heights, its playful mood and stilted aesthetic aren’t totally alien to “Twin Peaks” or Dunham’s prior feature directorial efforts like “Halloweentown” (if you squint, I promise there’s a through line there). 

The meandering mythical work concerns a digging town founded by the family of Goose (Thomas Haden Church), a resolute but even-keeled leader and cowboy who identifies the blissfully naive digger Joe (Josh Whitehouse) as someone who could potentially become a foreman to the area’s many laborers. Though these workers spend their days digging a hole for reasons we can’t fathom, they don’t appear to be aggrieved. They really love ploughing the earth. Their utopian existence is disrupted, however, by the return of the mean Clete (Colm Meaney), who wants to use tractors to dig deeper into the soil. It’s up to the kindhearted, wide-eyed Joe, Clete’s nephew, to stop him.

Dunham’s film is in a kind of grey area; it’s at once not as cute as the material suggests or as nightmarish as it could get. For every scene featuring a turtle race or shovel becoming a kind of Excalibur, there’s also cold-blooded murder. Joe’s wife Joanne (Megan Holder) is seriously underdeveloped, and the fable aspects are too obviously rendered to be wholly transportive. Nevertheless, Church is simply astounding, bringing an unlikely gravitas mixed with some quiet comedic timing for a bewitching quality. Whitehouse, whose performance is purposely grating, nimbly follows the arc of his character, becoming a quippy hero worth following. 

Even when “Legend of the Happy Worker” struggles, I found myself being somewhat forgiving. This kind of overly sentimental work told with a lighthearted touch was commonplace in the 1990s, particularly in kids’ sports movies like “Angels in the Outfield” or the Dunham-directed “Little Giants.” So it’s somewhat heartwarming to see a film like this out in the wild somewhere, even if the film itself isn’t as wild as the material promises it’ll be.      

Now is the time when we should be going out of our way to support originality in film. Sure, we all cry out about the lack of new ideas in Hollywood, but when it comes time to speak with our wallets, it’s the remakes and big name IPs raking in the most money by year’s end. Rarely does actual, genuine artistry get recognized, but it does happen. The summer of Barbeheimer was a fantastic example of this, and even now, Sinners is tracking to do way better than projected thanks to tremendous word of mouth. I love to see it, and I wanted to keep the train rolling by checking out A24’s latest fantasy film, The Legend of Ochi. And by God, I probably should have just gone to see Sinners again.

It’s easy to get drawn into the film’s quirky, fantastical aura, and rightfully so. Director Isaiah Saxon and crew have crafted a visually marvelous film that utilizes plenty of old school techniques that just simply can’t be beat by computer generation. From paintings to puppets, this had all the trimmings to deliver a whimsical, dark fantasy film the likes of which I have not seen in a long while. Unfortunately, those visuals just aren’t enough to save its narrative shortcomings. I was disappointed to find this film to be dry, lopsided, and wholly unengaging for a good chunk of the runtime. It really pains me to say this because there was so much potential here to create a modern fantasy worth talking about for years to come, but unfortunately, this fantasy is far from fantastic.

Set in a secluded, mountainous island in the Black Sea, we follow a young girl named Yuri, who becomes fascinated with the Ochi; supposedly dangerous creatures that her father tries to hunt with his gang of young boys. But when Yuri makes contact with a baby Ochi, she finds these creatures to not be what they seem and decides to set off on a quest to return the child back to its parents.

I do want to focus as much as I can on the artistry of this film, because for all my problems with the film, it is still a wonder to behold. The Carpathian Mountain ranges are presented in sweeping, saturated vistas that fully translate their scale to the film. Seeing Yuri traverse the open, empty ranges makes this feel like a proper wilderness adventure that can’t possibly be recreated convincingly through digital means. But there are also some beautiful physical sets made with such care and craftsmanship, looking both stylized yet legitimate. There’s a cave near the end of the film that glitters with stalactites coated in dew that just looks phenomenal. Even some of the backgrounds are made with expertly crafted matte paintings that harkens back to the golden days of Hollywood. I also really enjoy the film’s color palette, kind of mimicking the colors of the Ochi with orange hues and blue highlights. 

And let’s talk about those weird little apes, because they are certainly the star of the show. If you thought Grogu was something to behold, well, he looks like a sock puppet compared to what the team has done here. Through a mix of animatronics, full body suits and puppets, the Ochi have been given an undeniable sense of realism to them. From full body movements to minor face movements, these are some of the most impressive examples of physical creature creations I’ve seen in a hot minute. Especially with the baby Ochi, who we get to spend a lot of time gawking over. He was apparently controlled by a total of seven people at once to nail the subtle, gentle movements of the creature; and I have to say, they really hit it out of the park. Yeah, it can look a bit hokey at times, especially when the creature is supposed to be moving fast, but it’s too charming for me to care. Even with all the advancements we’ve seen in motion capture and digital rendering, I think I still prefer when something is actually there on set, interacting with the actors. Truthfully, it makes a world of difference. 

Speaking of the actors, there’s unfortunately not a ton to really write home about. This isn’t really a fault to them, as there’s obvious talent at work here, but the film’s narrative and direction kind of sandals them into underdeveloped or unexplored roles. The father/daughter relationship between Helena Zengel’s Yuri and Willem Dafoe’s Maxim lacks proper attention and detail that makes their eventual rekindling impactful, while the role of Finn Wolfhard’s Petro wastes the potential of having an adopted son never really seen as a son in favor of an uninfluential background character. The surface level ideas of finding like you don’t belong in your own family has some loose connections to the setting, which is beginning to grow modernized with imports like grocery stores and heavy metal music. Yet I never felt as if the elements actually impacted the story in any meaningful way. Teen angst, parental separation and the understanding of our bond with nature are all present, though they feel more like checked boxes rather than integral parts to the narrative.   

For a film bursting at the seams with creative visuals and designs, the narrative voice just didn’t seem up to snuff. The dry, stunted dialogue and deliveries occasionally gives way to a few laughs, but I actually found it to be rather drab. It’s not like Wes Anderson films, where the stoicism of the characters feeds into the ridiculousness of the story, rather, it kind of feels like it’s keeping the audience at arm’s length, never letting us develop any real reason to care about these characters. Dafoe’s commitment does elevate his role a tad, but everything else can’t really keep up. This is noticeable in the pacing as well, where the film teeters with being far too patient in more meditative scenes, while being far too abrupt and scatterbrained in the more high energy moments. 

Truthfully, I just don’t know if this knew what it wanted to be. I think it’s far too slow paced for kids to enjoy, though the fantastic visuals are certainly an alluring worm on a hook. It may succeed at giving older audiences a hint of nostalgia through the vintage artistry at work, but nothing about the story is really going to excite them in the same way that the visuals do. Like I said, I’m so disappointed to find this isn’t the American- live-action, Studio Ghibli-esque film we probably all wanted, but there is still plenty to admire in it. I only hope that the filmmakers can see this as a learning experience and try again with that same craftsmanship while putting a bit more thought into creating a narrative that properly services the incredible effect work. And A24, please start re-evaluating what you put your money into. I know you saw the ochi and your first thought was making a $400 plushie that like 20 people will buy.

RATING

OCHI

Borrowing the name and color palette of the cool critters in the film, The Ochi is a bit of a gin sour that employs bright and refreshing tangerine juice alongside some welcome botanical notes from the aforementioned gin and a dash of Benedictine. While all that is perfectly fine on its own, I have also decided to try playing around with flavored foams to give the cocktail a bit more uniqueness. This is where one of my favorite new kitchen gadgets, the iSi Nitro Whipper, comes into play. With it, I was able to make a creamy blueberry foam to layer on top, not only to add a bit more fruit flavor, but to also create some colorful layering that typically wouldn’t be possible. I do believe it’s possible to make this foam without a whipper by simply dry shaking the ingredients in a shaker, but further testing will be needed.

INGREDIENTS

• 2oz gin
• 1/2oz Benedictine
• 1.5oz tangerine juice
• 3/4oz lemon juice
• 1/2oz simple syrup
• 1 egg white

For blueberry foam

• 2 egg whites
• 1/2oz lemon lemon juice
• 5 blueberries
• 1.5oz blue curacao
• Equipment: ISI Whipper

INSTRUCTIONS

BLUEBERRY FOAM

1. Add ingredients to your iSi whipper.
2. Charge it with a NO2 cannister and give it a shake.
3. Replace the cannister with another one and give it one last shake.
4. Place in fridge for at lest 30 minutes.

COCKTAIL

1. Add ingredients to a shaker and dry shake (without ice) for about 20 seconds.
2. Add ice and shake to chill.
3. Strain into coup or martini glass.
4. Slowly add on foam to the top of the cocktail.