Jiri Trnka - The hand(1965) part_1.avi

[whitetiger12ali]

very intelligent piece of work ,entertaining and charming too!

[Schweinehunder]

The funniest thing to me about these eastern European surrealist films which subliminally critisize the state, is how the people in power could actually see themselves in those surrealist films and realise why it looked so bad, "We're LIKE the hand in that films, cause we're giving shit to everyone constantly and making their lives miserable, so if we can draw that coparison, maybe others would too, which is bad, because then we won't be able to give shit to them properly."

[Jellybones69]

Very enjoyable to watch.

[Gmancrap]

Classic.

[CapitanPingas]

VS Master Hand

[ravisol]

In Czechoslovakia this hand could be the comunist power, the same in China nowadays...but for a lot of people, this hand can be the capitalism, too.

Depends on the situation you are living, this hand can be one thing, or another one...but the meaning is always the same: power and control over the population...

[huntr7777]

@ravisol Personally I've always taken that this film could be about any repressive govt (be it a dictator, ruler, presidente, etc) which attempts to make the creative "artist" work for the govt to further their own cause. It's those people through their art, be it painting, musicians, or writers, that makes people think...which to a repressive govt, is very very dangerous.

[ravisol]

@huntr7777 Hi huntr7777! Well, I think a positive part of the art is that it can be used to comunicate, so the artists express their feelings with their works. It's not a negative think, and, in my opinion, Jiri Trnka was an autentic master of the art...cinema in his case. I love his work.

It's just my opnion, and sorry about my bad English, hehe.

[Athelstone]

If you are a fan of Jiri Trnka, be sure to check out:

Jiri Trnka - The Old Man of the Mountains

You can find it by copy and pasting that into the youtube search.

[merdekaataumati1949]

P R of Chine in 2011.

[Xloi63]

I remember seeing this when I was eight... maybe thats why I'm an anti-conformist

[mcgstudmuffin]

watched this today in my theater arts class, pretty superb

[Gmancrap]

What school do you attend? 

[MatthiasVonBrandhaus]

@Gmancrap 'Which' school, surely?

[Gmancrap]

Oh.

[NIDOSARAPSP]

죽이는데?

[merdekaataumati1949]

Even now, there are many countries like this film.

China, North Korea, Burma....

[mrtnprnj]

skvele

[HisEmptyHouse]

I have a new favorite filmmaker and his name was Jiri Trnka.

[500cameron]

When Jiri Trnka died in November 1969 (aged 57), he had a State funeral with honours. Only four months later, The Hand was banned; all copies were confiscated by the secret police, put in a safe and the film was forbidden for screening for next 20 years. The parallels of his own life as with the creative character in The Hand which ultimately ended in an early death then honoured is unnerving.

[Trund27]

@500cameron Wow. Thanks for the insight. It's incredible what some artists' lives (and afterlife) are like

[greenday12341]

i love this video

[PatchesRips]

I saw this in my animation history course at Sheridan College in the early 1990s, just after Czechoslovakia had its Velvet Revolution (and then its Velvet Divorce). I was always amazed that this got made in Czechoslovakia even before the Prague Spring. It's so clearly about authoritarian interference. How did they every sell it as anything else?

[OscarApollo]

@PatchesRips Apparently the government didn't think that puppet cartoons could have anti-communist themes. I suppose the message was too subtle for them to pick up - meaning they must have been complete idiots.