Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen

This film isn't just depraved and misanthropic, it's depraved and misanthropic with heart.

Despite it's grotesqueness, it depicts a fantasy of rebellion and transgression that I've loved for years. The urge to break free and destroy the confining objects and circumstances of our lives is within all of us. The potential joy of trashing and rendering inoperable our cars, the implements of our work, even our foodstuffs and houses lurks somewhere on a subconcious level, wether we are able to admit it to ourselves or not. Herzog has made an archetypal statement, very simply and unambiguously. The exhilaration of watching these laughing little people dismantle, bludgeon and set fire to their surroundings is immense

I find I have a weird empathy with the character Hombre, the small guy who happily follows the group and laughs while he watches all the destruction. He has a kind of humble nobility which is revealed at the beginning of the film when he refuses to talk to police.

The ultimate concern of Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) is not the plot or the characters - or indeed, the obvious gimmick of the casting and presentation - but in the creation of a certain sense or atmosphere pertaining to the broader representation of madness and insanity. As a result, it can viewed as either a metaphor or a microcosm of society, with a cynical and satirical comment on the then contemporary ideas of a civilization with no rules and limitations - a forced utopia if you will - and the inevitable escalation of violence, corruption and contempt that could only ever thrive in such a characteristically "free" environment. Although these ideas and interpretations do lend a certain sense of context to the images and themes presented herein, the eventual intent of Even Dwarfs Started Small is to present a story on the most simple and visual of levels; creating an escalating sense of emotion that moves wildly from moments of humour to horror until, finally, reaching a fever-pitch level, wherein all the notions blur together into one.

Herzog would probably reject any interpretation other than the literal one of dwarfs rebelling against authority, but then again, Herzog's word isn't intended to be taken as gospel. The natural contradictions of the set-up here, in which the fight of the characters to free themselves from what they see as a corrupt and abusive society, ultimately giving way to something that is even more oppressive, is an intelligent one; something that you could interpret on a political level, or in fact, as a wider-reaching comment about the position of the outsider within society. Likewise, the casting of the dwarfs' works on a number of other, more interesting levels, most obviously in the creation of a world that we must carefully re-adjust to and learn to experience from a completely different perspective. The buildings, cars, furniture, trees and animals remain the same as how we would experience them on a day-to-day basis, but thrown into this veritable mix we have characters that are literally dwarfed - overwhelmed even - by the world around them, creating a further rift that propels these notions of revolution and defiance.

In a world in which even climbing onto a bed or reaching up to pull the door handle becomes a accomplishment as epic in scope as that of Herzog's ultimate personification of single-minded determination and intensity, Fitzcarraldo (1982), the plight of the dwarfs in this film takes on a greater meaning, as the film begins with something of a moral victory that simply cannot be sustained given the heightened sense of reality that the film exists in. We're never entirely sure as to what triggers the revolt, or why there is only one dwarf left in charge of the compound, barricaded in his office with one of the other dwarfs tied to a chair as a hostage, or indeed, what purposes this compound fulfilled in its previously active form. This persistent abstraction of the background details of the story forces us to focus more closely on the relationship between the larger group unit, and the slow spiral of dysfunction and destruction that escalates from one scene to the next. If you attempt to approach the film on any such level of story and character, you might possibly be disappointed or even offended by Herzog's stark presentation. Instead, the real point of the film is in the atmosphere that it creates, and in the feelings that it forms as we watch these enigmatic and often provocative images unfold.

If you're familiar with Herzog and his work, you'll be able to appreciate this style from films such as Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) or Heart of Glass (1976), with the continual juxtaposition between moments of abstracted realism and bizarre, fever-dream hallucinations that seem to exist within the story free of context. This continual contrast adds to the dreamlike, or indeed, nightmarish aspect of the film, which recalls elements of Todd Browning's difficult masterpiece Freaks (1932); and not simply on the more obvious, superficial level, but in the way in which the film gets darker and darker as it progresses towards a violent and memorable final. Though a brief description of some of the scenes and situations presented in the film might fail to shock an audience, viewers should be advised that the incredibly heightened sense of tension and the abstract surrealism created by the use of cinematography, editing, location and music lends the film a suffocating air in which the destruction of personal property, plant life and animals becomes hypnotic, frightening and entirely overwhelming.

For me, it's one of Herzog's best and most fascinating works; filled with bold visual imagination, a potent message (and element of satirical intent), room for interpretation, and some incredibly disturbing and enigmatic imagery. More to the point however, the film remains an unrivalled visual experience; one that goes beyond the conventions of story, character and ideology and instead creates a cinema that is simply felt; clearly an absurd and disturbing work of pure cinematic expression. In many respects, I would consider it Herzog's most intense and perhaps even most disturbing film, and one of the most powerful films ever made; with the location, setting, theme, character and visual presentation creating something that is entirely affecting and entirely unforgettable.

Werner Herzog made his madman mark with this, his second feature film. Inmates at some sort of institution take over for hilarious and anarchic results. You laugh for a while until it sinks in. The haunting tone, other world locations and sympathy with those on the edge of society set the scene for Herzog's later and better-known masterpieces AGUIRRE and MYSTERY OF KASPAR HAUSER. The German director doesn't exploit outcasts; he loves and defends them, showing that normal people are the ones with something to prove. He insists that it is not the actors who are small, but "the world that has gotten out of shape." Filming was rough: one actor was run over by the driver-less car in the film and another caught on fire. Herzog promised the actors that at the end of shooting he would jump into a spiny cactus to show his understanding. He still has some of the needles in his leg. But this won't appeal to a lot of the usual trash film hounds, as they really want the mainstream versions of "edgy".

Director Werner Herzog created a bizarre revolutionary world made up of dwarfs. Every actor in the film is a dwarf, not to mention angry and German too. They all decide to rebel against the system, but a revolution is tough when you can't even reach the door handle. One of their friends is held hostage for interrogation by a rich authority figure. It's dwarfs to the rescue! Watch in shock as dwarfs try to drive a car, look at porn, set fires, break things and even torture animals. The film even includes a brutal cock fight and the crucifixion of a monkey. "Even Dwarfs Started Small" may be to disturbing for some. To me, it was challenging but worth watching; it shows viewers that your never too small to fight the system!

I actually admire what writer/director Werner Herzog was going for with Even Dwarfs Started Small even if I think he didn't quite execute it in a manner that involved me enough. It's got a great idea behind it- inmates at a mental institution, on one of the Canary Islands pre-tourism, create an anarchic uprising with practically no one else in sight, and the headmaster locks himself in with a retarded patient while the others go wild and crazy, albeit still staying in the confines of the grounds of the area. I also liked when Herzog went for an interesting route in the picture psychologically and in mood, which was to show how chaos and disarray, even if among little people, can actually become rather aimless and uncanny.

There is no plot, it's just a series of interconnected segments that seem to be happening in real time, where they do things like ogle at naked girls in magazines, kill a pig randomly, give constant torture to a couple of blind dwarfs, circle around a constantly 360 degree spinning car, and with Herzog sometimes just as interested in the animals (chickens, a camel, the pig, a monkey) on the premises as he is with his whacked out little folk.

But the problem arises then with the work that since it is plot less- even if it ends with the headmaster, talking to a branch outside, as a metaphor for human control and what is and what isn't a free will or spirit perhaps- there's the danger of becoming tedious with what goes on, and that's exactly the trap that I think Herzog falls into here. It's not that he is out blatantly to mock them (although, like with Stroszek, the tendency to laugh is hard to avoid at times, especially with its documentary-style anything-goes approach), but there isn't any grand metaphor I could really obtain from the material, at least from a first viewing, and Herzog seemed to be having too much fun getting the dwarfs to do both the mundane and whatever to get something consistently interesting.

While he does have one character who ends up being quite memorable, the freaky-laughing, hilarious Hombre (all one-note, of course, but then again isn't everyone here), there's nothing to tie the parts together that are worth watching for to make it good enough for the whole. There's surrealism of course (the fate of the monkey and the car), and an image or two that strikes greatly (when the headmaster or whomever tries to get the attention of the one-passerby on the island), but it just didn't compel me or surprise me in ways that Herzog at his best can do.

Not that I'm telling you to not see the film, as a fan I mean. The title alone should be a calling card to anyone who might have a bit of interest in the subject matter, and I'm sure a work like this has inspired a few avant-garde director's out there (I saw it as a possible fore-father for Korine's Gummo). Yet it's own lackadaisical use of narrative and Herzog's insistence on ambiguity and derangement, makes it a kind of schizophrenic work that makes it a fun yet flawed trip.