One of the selling points many children’s films strive for is appeal for adults. If parents are going to be convinced to sit through films with their kids, and especially if they’re going to endure bits and pieces of the endless repeated viewings that are inevitable once the DVD is purchased, they figure they need to throw a little bone to the older crowd. Unfortunately, these usually come in the form of endless in-jokes and pop culture references that, even when they are sporadically funny, tend to be completely incongruous with the surrounding material. And you’re left with green ogres delivering fart jokes and making references that are destined to be dated in a year, let alone 20, or 50.
How refreshing it is, then, to watch a film like Michael Ocelot’s Azur & Asmar, which does such a remarkable job maintaining adult appeal, through shimmering beauty and a fairy tale plot, that it’s easy to imagine it enduring as well as Hans Christian Andersen or The Brothers Grimm. Ocelot’s films may be animated, but they aren’t pigeonholed by labels like “adult” or “children’s” animation. The director seeks a more universal audience, and does so without watering anything down for one or the other.
The film tells the story of two young boys brought up in Europe in the middle ages. Azur, blond, blue-eyed, and pale-skinned, is the son of a wealthy landowner. Asmar, with his black hair, brown eyes and skin, is the son of Azur’s nanny, a north African servant who becomes a surrogate mother to Azur, whose real mother is dead, and whose father is a stern, emotionless bigot. Azur is raised speaking both his language and that of his nanny, and is taught the songs and fairy tales of her homeland. He and Asmar share everything equally, sleep side by side, and are brought up as brothers, until the day Azur’s father sends the boy off to study in the city and casts out Asmar and his mother.
As an adult, Azur longs to travel across the sea to rescue the Djinn-fairy of his nanny’s tales, an imprisoned queen of the Djinn, a race of magical elf/ fairy-like creatures of Arabian folklore. Once there, he finds himself destitute, an immigrant and an outcast who can barely speak the language anymore and who is shunned by anyone he meets due to his blue eyes, which they believe is a symbol of bad luck. It’s a crushing start to his quest.
