Et Cetera

In one of Jan Svankmajer's many quirky short films, several things continue happening. A human whips a dog, and slowly turns into a dog while the dog turns human; a man has all sorts of trouble drawing a house; and an animated figure has a weird experience with some wings. I can't figure out what would be the point of all these images, but it all just goes to show that Svankmajer had a really cool imagination. Most of us in the Western Bloc probably would never have envisioned something like this coming from the Eastern Bloc, but it did, and it's all really something. So definitely "Czech" it out.

I said that I can't figure out the point. Maybe we shouldn't try to figure those sorts of things out. We should just watch and get enthralled.

"Et Cetera" is a very unique film from the career of Czech animator Jan Svankmajer for a number of reasons, most of them pertaining to the overall difference between it and his other work. It makes one wonder what the filmmaker was thinking when he created it, since his previous shorts before this had all been similar in one form or another to others, and all of which bear no resemblance to this. "The Last Trick" and "Punch and Judy" were not yet his standard style in stop-motion but were both visually interesting in their fantastic imagery; "Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasia G-moll" and "A Game with Stones" both explored the concept of matching animation with music cleverly. This film is very different visually and stylistically, and doubtless was dismissed later as being preliminary work the director made prior his golden years.

What makes "Et Cetera" so unique for Svankmajer is the overall visual look of it. Instead of plain stop-motion, it is made as a cartoon with no live-action material, consisting of several different stick figures doing fantastical things. These include drawing a house which they can literally fit inside of, hitting a weird creature with a whip, and using wings to fly. While the antics are clearly meant to be impossible stunts, the movie lacks a certain element of the surreal that would make it him. There is nothing dreamlike or strange about it, just a trilogy of animation experiments mildly entertaining to see but at the same time hardly living up to what he had produced before. Then again, it's possible the film really shouldn't be compared to his other works because of how stand-alone it is for Svankmajer. It is executed well and is worthwhile for fans of the filmmaker, but at the same time inferior visually and stylistically when compared to other works.

I dunno what it is with this little short movie by Jan Svankmajer.

Its a cartoon, divided into 3 parts. In one way its a pretty simple movie, but it still has some of the things that I love about Svankmajer. I have this on DVD before, and have seen it numerous times before, but I stumbled on it once again on the net.. and now I've watched it 4-5 times the last couple of days. Its really that good, in a way.

One of the parts consists of a person who makes a house, but he can't get into it. He then erases it and build it from the inside.. but then he can't get out.. and then he erases it and makes it from the outside again, but he can't get in... and it goes on and on.

What they mean exactly is not really obvious, but I guess they could mean whatever you seem to fit with it.

But what I like most about Et Cetera is that it shows that Svankmajer makes all kinds of movies, and he makes animation and stop-motion out of whatever you could name almost.

His limits is simply NOT THERE. 8/10