Azur et Asmar

"Impossibly gorgeous" animated French film AZUR & ASMAR opens in San Francisco Friday! Film director Michel Ocelot will be attending both the 4:15 and 7pm shows on Friday at the Landmark Opera Plaza Cinema. The 4:15pm show is an audience Q&A, while the 7pm show is an introduction to the film.

The film has received wonderful reviews for its remarkable visual beauty and timeless story of multicultural friendship and adventure.

In English - Recommended for ages 6+

Set in the Middle Ages, Azur and Asmar is the story of two boys raised as brothers. Blonde, blue-eyed, white skinned Azur and black-haired, brown-eyed, dark-skinned Asmar are lovingly cared for by Asmar's gentle mother, who tells them magical stories of her faraway homeland and of beautiful, imprisoned Fairy Djinn waiting to be set free. Time passes, and one day. Azur's father, the master of the house, provokes a brutal separation. Azur is sent away to study, while Asmar and his mother are driven out, homeless and penniless.

Years later, as a young adult, Azur remains haunted by memories of the sunny land of his nanny, and sets sail south across the high seas to find the country of his dreams. Arriving as an immigrant in a strange land, Azur is rejected by everyone he meets on account of his "unlucky" blue eyes, until finally he resolves never to open those eyes again. The once-beautiful child clad in gold is reduced to a blind beggar. Yet, blind though he is, little by little and step by step, he discovers a beautiful and mysterious country. Meanwhile, back in her homeland, Azur's nanny has become a wealthy merchant and Asmar has grown into a dashing horseman. Reunited but now as adversaries, the two brothers set off on a dangerous quest to find and free the Fairy of the Djinns.

I saw this today as part of the London Children's Film Festival 2006 at the Barbican Centre and found it completely and utterly satisfying. Every second of screen time is mind-blowingly beautiful to the point of being painful - from the wild flowers on the field where the title characters played as boys, to the starlit silhouette of Azur and the Princess on a treetop. But don't let the sumptuous visuals make you think this film is just eye candy. The story is engaging and yet profound, the characters vivid, and the message (yes, it has a message, but what's wrong with that?) is inspirational; a quality that the English-language animated films of the last decade has completely eschewed. Ocelot's early 'Princes et Princesses' was enchanting and promising, and both his Kirikou films were endearing. But with 'Azur' he has totally ascended to a different level. It is admirable how he consistently refuses to dumb down his characters, and the delightful ending is wonderfully faux conventional in Ocelot's trade mark style. Difficult to see how popular this would be with today's kids, but a generation growing up inspired by 'Azur' would no doubt be more pacifist and tolerant.

In Valladolid, Spain, the serious movie-goers with extremely high standards when they evaluate movies applauded the film in the Fifty-First International Film Week (SEMINCI 2006). It is impossible to exceed in every way: The theme and story, the incredible cartoon drawings, the luscious colors and their combinations, the endearing characters, the creativity, the stunning difficulty of the sketching and the music and sounds of the languages involved all combine to offer us a memorable film. It may seem curious but the word that I voiced when it ended was DELICIOUS. There are so many impacting images that linger even now in my mind's eye.

I remember watching it years ago with my class and I thought the movie is interesting.

But then looking back at it, it is still good.

Sure the animation is kinda poor, even if it was made in a low-budget. But it still has some great visuals and beautiful shots.

I enjoy the characters and the story as well.

So yeah, it was a nice to come back to this movie after years.

I was moved to tears by this simple yet so aesthetically pleasing fairy tale. The moral of the story is not layered too thickly on top, but still there's no way round it: this is about respect, tolerance, prejudice and open-mindedness.

The oriental influence in style, music,language........is wonderfully inspiring and is a very much needed anti-dote for the negative light in which the Mediterranean cultures are usually presented.

Beautiful music (and silence!); splashes of color; a very tactile movie.

Absolutely a favorite for me and my children!