Film

French animator Ocelot’s style is so distinct from most American animation that it seems like an entirely different art form. In Azur & Asmar, Ocelot takes advantage of computer animation’s strengths (moving the point of view from, say, a low angle looking up at a character to a God’s-eye perspective in one gorgeous swoop), but he also mixes complex backgrounds that often look like collages with flat planes of color for characters’ clothes, a choice that stresses the two-dimensionality of the film. (Animation buffs will spot the influence of Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 silhouette animation film The Adventures of Prince Achmed.) And, with a rich use of Islamic architectural detail, the film nearly explodes with lush detail. Have we mentioned that this thing is gorgeous?

The plot follows Azur, blond, blue-eyed European, and Asmar, the Arab son of Azur’s nanny. In a loosely defined Middle Ages, the boys are raised like brothers, complete with sibling rivalry. As adults, they meet again when both have set out on a quest to free the djinn fairy. It may take a while to adjust to Ocelot’s slower pacing, but once you surrender your Disney-and-Pixar-trained expectation of wacky cuteness (like the jumbo-sloth humans who mar the second half of WALL•E), Azur & Asmar is utterly enchanting.