Kievnauchfilm
Artistic Collective for Fiction Animation
There lived in this world
a man named Yerik.
YERIK based on the story by A. Platonov
Atchee!
There was no-one more cheerful than Yerik in the world:
never did his soul lament inside him, nor his heart grieve.
For this world, Yerik was a perfect fit.
Yerik was engaged in many things -
he plowed, walked the field,
counted the clouds and thought about everything -
"Why is it so good in the world
when there is nothing good in it
and everything in it is understood?"
Everything elicited joy in him
and he responded to everything.
Yerik did not believe either in God nor in the enemy.
"Everything is human," he thought, "and the Earth has no ends."
Yerik treated the other men like brothers.
They sensed humanity in each other and were not embarrassed
that they lived as if they were alone in their village, away from the world.
From each house one could see the sky,
and from the sky, the entire world.
Once, the enemy of humankind came to Yerik
and said:
"Would you like me to teach you how to mold people from clay?"
"Sure," said Yerik.
"And what'll you give me?"
"I guess... a bast shoe."
"And what else?"
"Hmm, what else... felt boots,
a skirt, a clay jar...
I won't leave you feeling cheated, don't worry."
The enemy taught Yerik to sculpt people
out of clay, earth and all manner of filth,
when mixed with spit.
Yerik molded a whole regiment of people
and released them all over the belly of the Earth to find its four corners.
And one day, a rumour came:
the enemy's children had showed up somewhere
and were turning the belly of the Earth inside out,
displaying its guts and livers.
All the filth inside was shown to all for free,
to give them fun and comfort.
Five days later,
the sky broke apart and the Earth turned inside out.
Filth poured in from everywhere,
and corruption.
Everyone saw what the good world had been made of and laughed at it.
The enemy's and Yerik's children renounced God and the enemy of humankind;
they progressed ahead of them,
and decided to turn the world upside down...
"We must," they said, "make a different Earth ourselves, to start with."
The world ended with amusement and joy.
The Earth and the sky were discovered to be filth, a hen-house,
and no one needed them anymore.
Yerik's regiment had done its work.
At night, everything disappeared,
and people found themselves close to each other
and forever alone.
One undertaking was ended, and another begun.
Screenplay and director Mihail Titov
Art director Mariya Cherkasskaya
Camera S. Maksimovich
Composer Vladimir Bystryakov
Sound V. Shchigol
Animators M. Korolyova, M. Yaremko, Mihail Titov
Assistants: L. Vrublevskaya, O. Yankovskaya, O. Perekladova, O. Rayenok
Artists L. Slyusarenko, Ya. Rudenko
Montage O. Deryazhnaya
Narrator O. Komarov
Script editor S. Kutsenko
Production director Ivan Mazepa
The End
Kiev Order of the Red Banner of Labour Studio of Scientific-Popular Films, 1989
Subtitles by Niffiwan (2021)