In this animated feature directed by Michel Ocelot, a sojourning Saracen widow is employed as a nanny by a European nobleman. The widow Jenane treats her young charge Azur with the same love that she gives her biological son, Asmar. Both boys grow up listening to Jenane sing about the Djinn Fairy who awaits a rescuer to break her curse.The two boys are close as brothers until Azur's father, annoyed by the rough horseplay between the children, and uncomfortable with the bilingual upbringing that Azur is receiving from Jenane, expels the nanny and her son.
The setting then shifts to Jenane's country "across the sea", a place rich with the aesthetics of West Asia and North Africa.1 There Asmar and Azur are reunited as young men. They both set out to fulfill their shared dream of saving the Djinn Fairy. But only one of them can win the hand of the mythical lady whom many others have sought and failed to find.
Among the characters who help them on their quest are the precocious Arab princess Chamsous Sabah, a small child with big goals of statecraft; and the wise immigrant Yadoa, a European Jew who claimed that he found more tolerance in the multi-faith Arab world.
Notes:
1. "Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest" on wikipedia
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