Alibaba (2002)

• 51%
• 2002
• Animation
• Usha Ganesarajah

The tale of Ali Baba (to use the more common Western spelling) is one of those generic stories, the details of which tend to be pretty loose: there are 40 thieves, there's a magical cave with the password 'open sesame', and there's a chap called Ali Baba who starts out poor and miserable and ends up rich and happy and gets the girl. In this version, Alibaba is scant while his brother Rakim is a wealthy, fat slob. Wandering in the desert, Alibaba sees the gang of forty thieves and overhears their password; inside their cave he finds wealth beyond measure and on this basis he becomes fabulously rich and popular and builds a palace for himself and his girlfriend Margina. Rakim, ever greedy, finds out the password but is found in the cave by the thieves and killed. Alibaba and Margina find Rakim's head on a spike (!) and swear revenge. Meanwhile, the thieves are coming looking for Alibaba and try to sneak into his palace inside barrels, the leader posing as an oil salesman - but Alibaba and Margina are too smart for them. However, the leader escapes, leading to a climactic confrontation in the magic cave.