There Lived Kozyavin

There Lived Kozyavin
Directed by	Andrey Khrzhanovsky
Produced by	A. Zorina (Executive producer)
Written by	Gennady Shpalikov, Lazar Lagin
Story by	Andrey Khrzhanovsky
Animators	Gennady Sokolsky, Valery Ugarov, Stanislav Sokolov, Vladimir Morozov, Anatoly Petrov, Youry Kuziurin, Vladimir Arbekov, D. Anpilov
Narrated by	Alexander Grave
Music by	G. Lukyanov
Cinematography	Boris Kotov
Art director	Nikolai Popov
Sound director	George Martynuk
Editing by	Raisa Frichinskaya
Studio	Soyuzmultfilm
Release date(s)	1966
Running time	9:48
Country	USSR
Language	Russian
Budget	unknown

There Lived Kozyavin (Russian: Жил-был Козявин) is a short-story animation directed by Andrey Khrzhanovskiy and wrote by Lazar Lagin and Gennadi Shpalikov. The story is about a common employee by the name of Kozyavin, who was one day obtained by his boss to find another employee, called Sidorov. He then went through the whole earth, but futile.

Background

Andrey Khrzhanovskij, an assistant to Fyodor Khitruk, directed this film in a surrealistic, constrictivistic world, which resembles to the paintings by Giorgio De Chirico.^[1]

Plot

A common employee, called Kozyavin, received one day an assignment by his boss, possibly younger than he himself, to find another employee called Sidorov. Without any questions, he soon left the office to search the employee Sidorov. On a traffic, he walked instead on streets through sewer. He then arrived a wall, which was destroyed soon by a construction machine. There he met a builder and touched his shoulders. The builder turned to him and Kozyavin asked him, but he didn't hear anything he said close his ears. The builder took a little red flag from his suit and waved with it, until every builder stopped to work, and even the machines. Kozyavin asked one more time, if he sawed Sidorov. After a surprising action, he walked further to search Sidorov. An active ramp in the building site, which worked unintermittently up and down, didn't frighten up Kozyavin. Without taking any break, Kozyavin continued to walk. On a fair, he walked upon a pole. The children, which were amazed about his acrobatic skills, were asked by Kozyavin. After no reaction by them, the employee Kozyavin pursued his way with a optimistic view to comply the task. The second person Kozyavin met was a violinist, which currently played a composition. Kozyavin asked the violinist, if he saw Sidorov. Without any response, Kozyavin nudged him and took his violin bow. Walking on surrealistic stairs, he opened the door to a commission building. Lightless, Kozyavin sparked a light and went through paintings and antique and finally saw two people, which looked like thieves. Kozyavin was oblivious, that they were going to swipe the whole items in this building. However, Kozyavin touched one of the man's shoulder and asked the same question said before. Surprised, they attended with Kozyavin by giving the alleged right turn to Sidorov. Early next day he pursued the same direction. He entered a pipeline on ground, which curves were unrealistically smoothed by Kozyavin himself. He jumped from the pipeline onto the ground and treaded a drought veld. Convinced to meet with Sidorov, Kozyavin went throughout the veld, until he climbed up to a mountain. With a good sight, he watched everything around him. Unfortunately he didn't find anyone and continued to move forward. He arrived a desert and got a view to a giant skeleton of a prehistoric animal. Walking through the backbone like a stair, he sawed an archaeologist, who currently researched the skeleton, and asked him the common question. With no reply and no regret about the destroyed skeleton by the archaeologist, Kozyavin continued walking. A body of stagnant water didn't block him to accomplish the task the boss gave him, so Kozyavin swam, until he reached the Antarctica. Kozyavin walked around the world, until he arrived his office. Kozyavin didn't accomplish his boss' accomplishment to find Sidorov. Kozyavin answered it with a shrug and went back to his working room.

Quotes

“

Вы Сидорова не видали? Кассир пришёл! Have you seen Sidorov? The cashier has arrived!

”

References

1. ^ "Masters of Russian Animation (Volume 1) (1962-68)". Poisonous Monkey. http://homecinema.thedigitalfix.co.uk/content.php?contentid=3453. Retrieved 2010-12-27. 

External links

• There Lived Kozyavin at the Internet Movie Database
• There Lived Kozyavin on Animator.ru