The Hand

Year Published: 1966

Creator: Jim Trnka

Complete Record: A Czechoslovakian allegory, in puppet animation by Jiri Trnka, about dictatorial suppression of individual rights and freedom of expression. A man devotes his time to fashioning a clay pot for his flower; a large Hand appears and forces him to make a statue of a hand instead. The man protests and resists, but ultimately is overcome by the powerful, insistent Hand. This was Trnka's last, and some say best, film. Uses animation to present a stylized allegory. A lonely man whose only pleasure is a potted flower to which he devotes his love, struggles against a hand, which tries to destroy his world.