Kenneth Diaz Journal Entry 8

The short film “The Hand” (1965) by Ji Trnka is a stop-motion animation about a struggling artist whose creative aspirations are frequently hampered by a disembodied hand. The hand is represented to be more strong than the artist, symbolizing the oppressive and censorious powers that existed in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era. The film is subversive because it criticizes the harsh dictatorship that was in power at the time. The disembodied hand might be viewed as a metaphor of the Communist regime’s attempt to regulate all aspects of creative expression and silence any dissident voices.