Description:

A civil servant gets swallowed up by a crocodile being exhibited at the fair, but stays alive and finds that it only enhances his public standing. Based on the absurdist satire by Dostoyevsky (1856).

The story can be read here in Russian, or here in English (Constance Garnett's translation). In addition, much of the script for this adaptation comes from Dostoyevsky's unused ideas for the original story (here, in Russian), including the lyrics of the song. The ending to the story (after the 7-minute mark) is unique to this version - the original text ended "in the middle" and said nothing of the subsequent fates of the characters.

It is surely no accident that the film was made during a time of great upheaval for the country in which the director lived. This was to be his last serious work - in the following year, he made two short anti-AIDS commercials and contributed a short segment to an anthology, but then seems to have left animation for good.