The short, stop-motion animation, ‘The Hand’ or also known as ‘Ruka’ by Jiri Trnka is a dark and powerful allegory of how artists and people lived their lives under a totalitarian regime during the rule of the Soviet Union. The theme totalitarianism plays a huge part in this short film. It reflects the restrictive environment that the artists like Trnka had to live through. People who lived during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia were controlled by terror, lived in fear of arrest and imprisonment and practically had little to no freedom. However, that didn’t stop Trnka and other artists like him to stop creating art related to the corrupt system that is - the totalitarian regime. Trnka has conveyed this to the audience by a memorable use