Et cetera (1967)

The Worst Film Ever

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

To the tune of Carnival of Venice, we see the cyclic behavior of humanity- always repetition, always more rapid; an increase of efficiency without progress. One undergoes a process of four steps, flying greater distances with each- only to ultimately return to the point of origin and abandon one's wings. One whips the animal and masters it, forces it to contort into one's own image and thus becomes the animal who is now controlled by that which was formerly mastered. This is the dialectic of humanity and nature (or, perhaps better, Self and Other). Finally, the building of one's home- this does not entirely cycle as the other two, for the individual first inverts the starting place by drawing a line between self and the text which is the foundation (the grounds) for construction. The house is drawn frantically- indifferent exteriority and claustrophobic interiority cannot be overcome.I would suggest that, although the hat would not be mine if it did not have three corners, Svankmajer and the viewer also enter into a fourth cyclic process of stagnation here. Why else am I writing?

This short is basically constructed of three minor shorts with the same general theme. In one, a semi-transparent figure shows off how far different lengths of wings can allow him to fly, as compared to how he jumps. In the second, a watercolor figure directs a lion with a whip, until the lion becomes human and the human becomes a lion, at which point they trade and the exact same thing happens, back and forth. In the third and possibly the most beguiling, a figure made by cutting the shape out of a foreground so that a background shows through builds a house, but when he builds himself outside the house he can't get in and when he builds himself inside the house he can't get out, so he gets frustrated and tries over and over again. As his emotion changes, the background that fills his profile changes, from images of death when he's upset to images of birds when he's happy.What does it all mean? Well it's the human comedy, isn't it? And so on and so on.--PolarisDiB

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

Spoilers herein.Depends what you like, I suppose. At his worst, Svankmejer is trite and obvious. This is his worst.You get the impression that he has an artistic cleverness but is rather dull in his understanding of life. So we often are served up with sophomoric statements, pounded.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 4: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.