The hand is an animated work from the Czech Republic. The animation tells the story of the struggle between a potter and a “hand”. At the beginning of the film, the gardener originally lived a peaceful and stable life. Later, the “hand” appeared in his room and entered the gardener’s room in various ways, such as entering directly from the door, pretending to be a packaging box, or going into the room through the window… This hand grabbed the gardener and put him in a cage, ordered and forced the gardener to make a heroic sculpture of a hand. Later, the gardener escaped from the cage and went home. This hand still kept chasing the gardener all the way. The gardener who came home with his beloved flowers died at home due to excessive fatigue. The master still found the gardener and held a grand funeral for him.
【 The Hand 】（1965）
Categorisation：
This work is from Jir í Trnka, the Czech animation pioneer, and this is his last animation work. The film is an animated short film with the theme of anti dictatorship. At the end of the tragedy, the creator did not get rid of the control and torture of his hands, just like the creative career of director Jir í Trnka. Jir í Trnka has inherited the Czech doll production technology for five centuries and carried it forward in animation. In the early 1960s, the Czech Republic was in a state of turbulence and chaos. The country’s economy and politics were at an impasse. The authoritarian and dark government made people’s lives miserable. Jir í Trnka combines films and puppet shows that have been used for decades to express the theme of anti dictatorship. There is no more appropriate art form than this. As a result, this deeply touching short film made the authorities angry. After the work “Hand”, he stopped creating.
Form and Function：
In this film, hands are everywhere. Through gift giving, telephone, TV, newspaper and other forms, the target is forced to become his own slave step by step. The author described the palm in detail, such as the hand of the goddess symbolizing freedom, the hand of dragging the libra symbolizing science, the dangerous hand holding the gun to show a friendly handshake, and the hand of the woman who finally dressed in lace to tempt the gardener. The film highlights the changefulness and hypocrisy of the palm of the hand, gives vent to the creator’s protest and criticism of the dictator, and shows the servile relationship between the gardener and the hand. Under the force of the hand, the film becomes a tool man and loses its independence and autonomy as a human being.
Process:
The most special feature of Jir í Trnka’s works is that the carrier of animation is puppet. The puppets he made are lovely and meticulous, and the scenes and costumes are just as delicate and beautiful. And he began to notice the difference between puppet animation and puppet theater. Instead of allowing puppets in the film to have eyes and mouth that can move, he used the lens and light to change the atmosphere.
Formal Elements：
In the film of Palm, the puppet is always the same face. Jir í Trnka uses different lighting and music atmosphere to make the puppet have different emotions. For example, at the beginning of the film, the picture is bright, the music is lively, the puppet is happily making flower pot sculpture, and the audience can feel the happy atmosphere. With the advance of the plot and the emergence of the palm, the lighting gradually fades, and the same expression of the characters appears dull and numb.