The script is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1915 novel, "Victory".
"I made some changes to the literary source material. I moved the plot from the time before the First World War to the time before the Second World War. And I renamed the protagonist, Axel Heyst, Escher, a homage to M.C. Escher, whose unsettling perspectives I like. I also changed the ending. I didn't want Jones, the evil one, to simply die. I had him killed by the spears of the Alfuru tribe, so he dies pierced like Saint Sebastian, upright, almost standing. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to create this truly grand image of a body held back from falling only by spears. Evil can't simply die; it can be overcome for the moment, but it will return."
Vadim Glowna, director and actor of Captain Davidson in the film. From his memoir "The Storyteller" (2006)