AZUR & ASMAR: THE PRINCES’ QUEST (France/Belgium/Spain/Italy, 2006). Wednesday, 3rd December 2008AZUR & ASMAR: THE PRINCES’ QUEST
France/Belgium/Spain/Italy, 2006. Directed by Michel
Ocelot from his own screenplay. Music: Gabriel Yarad.
Certificate: “U”. Length: 99 minutes.
Principal Voice Cast: STEVEN KYMAN (Azur), NIGEL PILKINGTON (Asmar),
NIGEL LAMBERT (Crapoux), SUZANNA NOUR (Jenane),
IMOGEN BAILEY (Princess Chamsous), EMMA TATE (The
Djinn Fairy), SEAN BARRETT (Wise Man Yadoa).
There’s no doubt as to this being the most beautiful film that we are screening this season. Somehow that’s not the kind of thing one expects to say about a picture created by an animator despite the fact that visual effects and modern techniques have quite transformed animated features. The fact is, though, that Michel Ocelot is not typical of those working in the genre but a unique artist, and it’s certainly out of the ordinary to find an animated film that draws on Persian miniatures and Renaissance paintings.
The work of Michel Ocelot is not, in fact, unknown to our members since in 2004 we screened his most famous work to date, Kirikou and the Sorceress. Although he lived during his childhood in Guinea, West Africa, he was born in France in 1943 and returned there during his teenage years. Choosing to study art he soon began to experiment with animation by making short films with friends and trying out a whole variety of techniques. Sometimes puppets would be featured and at other times he would animate paper cut-out figures. Between 1976 and 1992 he developed his gifts on short films and on various TV works that used a series format. Significantly this progression was also marked by Ocelot not only doing the art work but always writing his own screenplays too. In the 1990s he finally took the plunge of turning to feature films for the cinema despite the length of time required in bringing them to fruition. Then when Kirikou and the Sorceress reached cinema screens in 1998 the twenty three international awards that it won ensured that he would concentrate on features in future. Princes and Princesses appeared in 2000 and five years later a sequel to his first feature entitled Kirikou and the Wild Beasts was screened. However, while working on that he was also preparing Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest. His work on it started in 2001 and was spread over the next five years. Although technically it is a co-production involving several countries, it was made entirely in Paris and took Ocelot into fresh territory in that it uses a process known as 3D animation.
However, to give an impression of what is involved in creating a film like this nothing is better than to quote Ocelot himself on how this particular project was developed. “First of all, there was the conception: finding a subject and writing about it. Once that’s done, things go very fast. For Azur & Asmar, once I’d come up with relations between France and North Africa, I thought about foster brothers with very clear-cut positions, one rich and one poor. Then I imagined them swapping roles over the course of the story. I wrote the first draft of the screenplay in two weeks. Next, I had to concentrate on the huge task of researching and drawing it. There were about a hundred clearly visible characters and two hundred extras to be created. I draw the main animation models, i.e. each character from the front, three-quarters front profile, in profile, three-quarters back profile, from the back, plus a few key expressions and attitudes. I have help with the secondary characters. We strive to be historically and geographically accurate and I deliberately chose to visit Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria before I developed the story. That doesn’t mean that you can’t take liberties, especially as there are no images of North Africa between antiquity and the 16th century due to religious bans.
“I prepare the whole film in the form of a comic strip or storyboard. That takes me a year. As early as possible, I invite my co-workers to help background out the animation. The 1,300 shots in the film are each defined in a file in which we also keep the framing of the shot, the characters’ principal positions in the shot, the sketches of the background, dialogue indications and camera movements. This work, carried out with a reduced crew, took two years. Then came the creation of the background followed by the actual animation which took a year and a half. And we end with a few months of post-production.”
The film as it has emerged starts with childhood scenes in which Azur, son of a lord who is a widower, treats the Muslim maid Jenane as a mother substitute. His best friend is Jenane’s son Asmar and both children delight in her stories, most particularly in one about an heroic prince who seeks to rescue from imprisonment the Djinn Fairy. In time, however, Azur’s father comes to disapprove of his son’s bond with Asmar and, indeed, when both have grown up, their childhood friendship does not prevent them from becoming rivals as each sets out to emulate the hero of Jenane’s old tale and to release the Djinn Fairy. Their adventures during this endeavour make up the film, while along the way intriguing subsidiary characters appear: there’s Princess Chamsous who is, in fact, a child, a Jewish wise man named Yadoa and an engaging but not necessarily trustworthy beggar named Crapoux.
What makes Ocelot so special, though, is the combination of artistry and humanity in his work. The story-line of Azur & Asmar could easily have been presented as a fantasy fairy-tale for its own sake but without significance. Ocelot, however, believes in the tradition that decrees that without becoming didactic or heavy-handed a story that entertains children can also educate them about the world. Ocelot’s statement that “if I’m going to work on something for six years I have to believe in it” becomes all the more meaningful when you realise that Azur & Asmar touches on the relationship between the Muslim world and our own, on attitudes to immigrants, on sexual stereotyping and the oppression of women and on the question of racial prejudice. Furthermore, all of this emerges in a totally unforced way as the adventures of Azur and Asmar enfold and delight us.
One further quote from Ocelot is relevant here. “People have often asked me how I make children’s films. My secret is that I never make children’s films, because children are not interested in films designed purely for them! Children need to learn about the world and discover new things. My films are made for the whole family, and I’m delighted to bring everyone together”. In fulfilling this aim Ocelot has chosen to prepare English language versions of his films and that is what we get on release here. One understands that children might not take to sub-titles but personally I would prefer that form (some prints could then be dubbed as an alternative). In this instance I feel that the voices initially distract but, once the story moves out of Europe, this ceases to be a worry - indeed, the fact that the character of Crapoux is presented to us as a foreigner means that Nigel Lambert’s voicing of the part comes across as a particular triumph. One positive consequence of the slightly uneasy start is that, as it goes on, this film just seems to get better and better –and that applies to the visuals too. The final scenes especially are exquisite and it is entirely in character that Ocelot’s film should close with a credit referring to the different backgrounds of those who collaborated in the making of it.
"Sheer dazzlement. This man just makes beautiful cinema. The pictorial style, jewelled and incandescent, has no peer or comparison in modern cinema" Nigel Andrews - Financial Times.
“Visually sumptuous ****” The Times. Splendid” – Time Out
“Michel Ocelot comes up trumps… an evocatively timeless tale”
Mark Kermode, The Observer.
Programme note by Mansel Stimpson
