Some time after the completion of the Oscar-winning The Old Man and the Sea (1999), Petrov returned to his hometown of Yaroslavl in Russia to work on his next film.

People and landscapes are painted and animated in a very realistic fashion, but there are sections where Petrov attempts to visually show a character's inner thoughts and dreams.

Because of Petrov's insistence on accuracy, especially where human emotions were concerned, about 20% of the film was made with a technique similar to rotoscoping.

[5] At the same time, it has faced criticism from some of Petrov's colleagues, including Ivan Maximov and Yuri Norstein, who have accused it of putting technical achievement ahead of true artistry.

Mikhail Tumelya, who accepted the awards at the 12th ORFAF for Petrov (who was not able to come either on account of illness, or because of worry about the audience reaction to his film[6]), summed up the criticism in the following words, attributed to a Buddhist monk: "there are more interesting things in the world than banal perfection".