Oh Sure
1977 · 1m · Canada
Genres: animation, comedy, satire
Tones: absurdist, humorous, whimsical
One man trying quietly to read his newspaper is pestered by another who insists on performing acrobatic feats, in a lesson about the futility of going to great lengths to impress a neighbour.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A 1977 NFB short that treats the entire premise of self-improvement performance as a cosmic joke — the acrobat keeps *trying*, the reader keeps *not caring*, and that refusal to resolve into sentiment or meaning is exactly the kind of deadpan subversion that makes consensus critics uncomfortable.
Economical satire with clear lineage to mid-century animation's formal wit; the restraint of the newspaper reader's reaction does the heavy lifting, a studied choice in negative space that recalls the discipline of earlier comic animation traditions.
One minute and it lands entirely on the acrobat's escalating futility — each failed stunt becomes more elaborate and more ignored, a escalation structure that requires precise timing and sound design to avoid becoming mere repetition; the filmmaker's refusal to cut away or soften the awkwardness is what makes it sting.