"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.
