Line #1 Animation/Ersatz


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/8995ebfa4738e76748cd4ba0fcb9962e.jpg]]
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3	''Ersatz'' (1961), aka ''Surogat'', aka ''The Substitute'', is an animated short film from the former UsefulNotes/{{Yugoslavia}}, produced by Zagreb Film and directed by Dušan Vukotić.
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5	A pot-bellied man arrives at the beach for a day of leisure. He whips out a series of geometric shapes, and, using an airpump, blows them up into various objects, including things like a table, a tent, a grill, and a fish to catch. Things get weirder when he apparently decides he wants companionship, and blows up one of his balloons into a woman.
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7	''Ersatz'' was the first non-American cartoon to win the MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestAnimatedShortFilm. It can be watched [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u59XkVwL1Sk here]].
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10	!!Tropes:
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12	* AbhorrentAdmirer: The first woman the man creates with his balloons is obese. He quickly deflates her.
13	* BuxomBeautyStandard: The man blows up a balloon into his beautiful bikini woman. He takes a look at her after he's done, then grabs the air pump again and goes back to make her breasts bigger.
14	* DerangedAnimation: A highly stylized and unrealistic style that resembles nothing so much as one of Creator/PabloPicasso's cubist paintings turned into a cartoon, with characters and objects that are really just a series of stylized triangles. Then there are the surreal gags throughout the film. The man can't get any drink out of his bottle--so he turns the bottle upside down and squeezes it like he was milking a cow. Then of course there's the man's ability to create anything, including a living woman, by blowing up balloons.
15	* DiabolusExMachina: The man runs over a random nail while driving home. This pops both him and the world he lives in.
16	* DidNotGetTheGirl: The woman dumps the man when she sees a [[MuscleBeachBum muscular surfer]].
17	* DrivenToSuicide: After the woman dies, the surfer kills himself by pulling out his plug.
18	* TheEnd: Shown in five different languages -- Croatian, English, French, Russian and German. This was typical of cartoons from Zagreb Films.
19	* EngineeredHeroics: The man produces a shark to go after the woman so he can rescue her.
20	* GainaxEnding: After deflating and putting everything away, the man then deflates ''the entire beach'', which he apparently brought with him. Then he inflates a highway and drives off... until his car hits a nail on the road, which explodes everything. Nothing is left but the nail, which then chuckles mischievously.
21	* IfICantHaveYou: After the man catches the woman having sex with the surfer, he kills her by deflating her.
22	* MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon: The man is constantly humming a song to himself, and the characters communicate in squeaks.
23	* MuscleBeachBum: The muscular surfer who steals the bikini woman away from the protagonist.
24	* ThreateningShark: The man inflates one to scare the woman.
25	* WidowsWeeds: The woman briefly pictures herself in these after the man goes into the ocean after the shark.

Context Animation / Ersatz