Ruka

Jiri Trnka's final work, a cry against censorship and totalitarianism: a simple sculptor defies the commands of a giant hand to glorify it with his art, but his integrity does not hold out forever. It's not at all subtle, but it's moving, beautifully animated, and there's real imagination throughout (like the hand's seductive dance).

This films feels like its trying to tell me something, but that it refuses to say what it is. This becomes incredibly frustrating when it's impossible to see what it means to tell you. Still fairly enjoyable, but somehow it ends up being mostly annoying.

Interesting.

A brilliant little commentary on artistic control and censorship, even if might be a little heavy handed. Pretty amusing throughout as well.

Raises some interesting questions about art and religion, but feels much longer then it actually is.

kisa

Amusingly, much of Ruka is like the perfect translation of American cartoon tropes into Europism. Instead of a cat and mouse there's a harlequin and a gloved hand, instead of drawing it's stop-motion, a bunch of surreal artsiness is thrown in, and there's a hinted political allegory, but essentially the interplay is very similar.

Neat little Czech-styled stop-motion, but a little bland in design and theme.

A bit heavy-handed but nice nonetheless.

Uma das grandes alegoria sócio-políticas já cometidas pela *mão* do homem. Vimeo.

I'll be honest, I didn't know what it was about until I read about it. Once you know, you see how unsubtle it is, but I also don't even think that's a problem. If it's about censorship, something extreme, it makes sense to combat it with extremism. This could have been a little shorter and got its point across, but it's an entertaining, well made short. I'm not in love with it, but I have a ton of respect.

product of it's time, without knowing i can still guess that it was banned like everything else worth while in czechoslovakia at that time. i saw this from a film copy that was entirely tinted red so that made it a tad bit more intense