Os Anões Também Começaram Pequenos

Werner Herzog's upsetting, black and white, documentary-like EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL concerns the rebellion of a handful of dwarves against the institution in which they are inmates. No average-sized actors appear - just the buildings, furniture and accessories that have been constructed for (and seemingly abandoned by) them. Herzog pulls a double whammy by getting his audience to identify with his performers - indeed, they are shown to express great sensitivity and pain - but doesn't cop out by suggesting that the dwarves will be happy now that they've smashed some windows. A difficult film to watch - and certainly not for the easily-offended.

I'm almost ashamed to say it but...this film truly TERRIFIED me! Usually speaking, this is like one of the best compliments a movie can ever receive, but I'm afraid that in the case of "Even Dwarfs Started Small" this feeling is very misplaced. Werner Herzog's minor masterpiece is intended as an allegoric social portrait, hence I'm not very proud to admit that it haunted me all night long. As wrong and unsympathetic as it may come across, these little people look naturally eerie and their appearances made an impression on me that was even stronger than the mesmerizing story. "Even Dwarfs Started Small" is a revolutionary film, pretty much covering all the daily wars every human being wages, only the protagonists are all dwarfs. Since these people's position in society already are oppressed as it is, this film looks extra powerful and compelling. All the actors and actresses deliver amazing performances, even though none of them had any experience in cinema. Especially the 'main' character Hombre is a truly intriguing man. Other aspects that increase the depressing intensity of this film are the black and white cinematography, the extended sequences showing farm animals and – most of all – the raw, tribal music. This definitely was one of the toughest reviews I ever wrote, simply because this is such a multilateral classic and I regretfully can't get past my personal fear of small shapes...

This film is hard going, true, but through the chaos and endless repetition can be glimpsed a kind of joy of existence. The dwarves are exaggerations of human behavior, and at the same time, human behavior distilled. Within the confines of the prison complex where the film plays, their actions become more and more outrageous, and through all this a kind of tenderness emerges in their very closeness and comeraderie. Herzog revels in pointing the mirror at his audience, making them take a closer look at themselves, and this film is as good as any example of his take on the human condition.

Werner Herzog's sophomore effort is probably his most bizarre to date. The whole cast is compromised of dwarfs who take over an institution and wreak havoc. This treat for Herzog fans is very entertaining.

The film does have its problems though. The first half hour is hard to sit through but this is the type of film that gets better as it goes on. Also, I was expecting more of an ending. The ending, although funny, seems that it just does not fit and ended too abruptly.

As I said in my title, I think this has Herozg's most powerful images. With the dwarfs wreaking havoc and celebrating with smiles on their while African tribe music is playing, the scenes are very bizarrely beautiful. The movie is very entertaining and very funny. Hombre has probably the best laugh I have ever heard in my life. He definitely brings real evil to the film. The cinematography is great (yeah, what else is new in a Herzog film?). The message of the film is also very profound.

Although this is definitely not Herzog's best, it is one hell of a trip!

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.