Ersatz and The Hand are two animations from the same time period, from similar parts of Europe. They use different styles to show different messages about their cultures, although it could be said that some overarching themes are present in both.
Ersatz is a 2D Cel animation that uses brighter colours and lighting with little variation for the whole animation. This keeps it feeling lighthearted, and could be mistaken for a children's program, at first glance. In fact, even the soundtrack enforces this; the music is much like the sort we would see in children's shows of today, or maybe a decade or two ago in Britain; it has the same upbeat, slapstick comedy kind of feel to shows like Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes, but the message given is quite different.
In Ersatz, shape matters. Every item or character in this has a very defined shape. This could just been seen as a stylistic choice until the main character proceeds to blow up a balloon which then takes shape of a woman, with small breasts, large hips and large thighs. He then deflates her (and metaphor for rejection) ad blows up another balloon. This one has a large chest and backside, with not much shape elsewhere. The man is happy with this, and forcefully tries to win her affections. This shows a reflection of society even today, showing how women are seen as prizes for men, and whether or not she wants a part in it, it doesn't matter - if the man wants her, he isn't going to stop until she is his. She in turn rejects him and slaps him, so he makes a plot to win her back - blowing up a shark while the woman is in the water and then catching it to look like her savior. He even tries to change his own shape to make her want him, but that doesn't work either, after she sees straight through both methods.She ends up leaving him for another muscley, more well shaped man.
The main character is jealous, so he deflates/kills the woman, and the muscly man is so sad that him deflates/kills himself too. The main character is now alone, and after an eventful day at the beach, he inflates his car and gets ready to go. However, on the drive home, the road deflates, and after falling, he does as well. This can be symbolic of a few things; my first thought was that this could represent of a fantasy, with it both starting and ending with the man creating everything that was shown around him, and that due to culture and the idea of people only gaining romantic attention if they have a nicer shape, his insecurity with his own image shows that even in his own fantasies he can't even win the girl, someone much manlier that him does. It also shows that in his world, there is no place for a) a woman who doesn't conform to his standards and b) a woman who doesn't do what he wants, as shown by the deflation. This is still relevant today, but probably more so in an Eastern European country of the 60s.
The Hand is an animation that uses a much more obvious metaphor - the hand of oppression. As the character tries to live his life as an artist, at first there is only interference - the hand gets in the way a little bit and stops him from doing the things he wants to do, and tries to dictate the way he makes his ceramic pots. This slowly gets worse, as the Hand begins to be everywhere in his life, and his art and then even his house is getting destroyed as he disagrees with it. Everything to do with the hand in this is black and white, showing the extremist views of communist Czechoslovakia. The music is limited, and only sound effects are present for the most part, but they soon turn more dramatic and violent as the Hand gains more and more interference. Even as he is on the phone, a mini hand appears above him - the influence communism has on his mind, even as he tries to reject it. The Hand gives him a TV, with nothing but black and white propaganda.
He tries to fight off the Hand but it doesn't seem to work - an idea, once there, is hard to get rid of, and I see this reflected in the idea of conforming to communism, although as time goes on, the Hand is more than just an idea, with more of society and physical forces re-emphasising it.
The Hand then turns black and is more and more violent. After that, the Hand is dressed in white fishnet gloves, and tries to seduce the man into communism, which works, with the man being caught by the black Hand and being forced to be it's puppet, creating what it wants him to make afterwards. All of his work is now a reflection of communism. He eventually burns himself on a candle to release himself from the strings, and eventually manages to get back home.
The man ends up killing himself with his own non-communist work by accident, and the Hand finds his. It then uses his own furniture as a coffin, and dresses him up conforming him to what they think everyone else should be.
This is a much darker animation, aimed at adults, but specifically to artists around the world who would have been affected by communism, much like the creator Jiri Trnka was. It was even banned in Czecheslovakia for it's anti-communist ideas, but Trnka considered it his greatest work. With the 3D puppets and much more camera work, this would have been more expensive to make than Ersatz, but the statement would have been so hard for anyone else to make, and was such a big obstacle in his life that it was worth doing it. It protests against a much more extreme idea, whereas the ideas of sexist is something that has existed throughout time, and is something not even noticed by a lot of people, with so many of them forced to live through it and not even realise how harmful it is. I think with the obvious symbolism as well that The Hand would be much more likely to get it's idea across; Ersatz could be taken very lightly as just a short piece of entertainment.
