This film is part of the Russian Classics for Children series.

Description:

A boy must rescue his younger brother from the prison of Grandfather Permafrost.

The following explanation/analysis is by Eus:
The set-up of the tale is simple enough: Two brothers always quarrel, one gets imprisoned by the evil twin-brother of Santa Claus, the other has to get him free.

The author of the piece, Yevgeniy Schwarz (1896-1958) was known for his hidden criticism of the totalitarian state the USSR had turned into in a time in which doing so could be a deadly mistake. His plays and tales were inspected by KGB censorship for traces of Aesopean story telling as it would be named in those circles. There is no direct criticism, but the audience would recognise pieces of the tale as clear-cut criticism, only the censorship did overlook it, because they hadn't recognised it. This tale is such a tale. The element of how the kid is held prison by the evil Santa, and the way pressure would be put on him, for his contemporaries it was clear that it was about the secret police and the way that political prisoners were be kept. For the censorship it was not, as it's a sort of logical party of the children's story, so how can this be political criticism? The fun of the current viewer to is recognise it in these modern times.