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Gerd Gickel, Paul Glauer, Helmut Döring

Even viewers who've seen Freaks won't be completely prepared for Werner Herzog's bizarre Even Dwarfs Started Small. The film is set in a dismal mental institution, wherein dwell several midgets, dwarf... read more read more...s and other "oddities." Sick of being tormented and exploited by the so-called normal people of the world, the inmates stage a coup, taking over the asylum and utterly reversing the status quo (Herzog's apparent attempt to draw parallels between the events on screen and such real-life upheavals as Vietnam). As in his other films, the director imbues his misshapen characters with a sort of regal grandeur, as if to purge the German wartime atrocities against "underdesirables." Herzog also produced, wrote and provided the musical arrangements for Even Dwarfs Started Small, which was initially released in Germany in 1970 (two years after its completion) as Auch Zwerge haben klein angefagen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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75% liked it

4,944 ratings

Critics

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8 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 36 min.

Directed by: Werner Herzog

Release Date: September 16, 1970

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DVD Release Date: December 14, 1999

Stats: 342 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (342)

  • 366weirdmovies
    April 2, 2012
    366weirdmovies
    Residents of an institution escape and wreck the grounds with childlike acts of vandalism and petty cruelty. The entire cast is composed of dwarfs. Almost plotless, but with moments that stick to your soul like a coating of grime (tiny Hombre laughing at the struggling camel may ... read morehaunt your nightmares for years to come). Animal lovers beware.
  • SirPant
    October 1, 2009
    SirPant
    As far as I'm concerned, Herzog helped cinema evolve from its relatively stale existence at that time and paved the way for so many directors and producers who didn't realise what they could do. He broke down boundaries and revolutionised cinema but you hear anyone give him the c... read moreredit he deserves for the same reason you will never find a t-shirt with his face on it! I love this film, I wish I'd made it!
  • vierasesine
    March 22, 2007
    vierasesine
    Disturbing. Oh, the poor piglets trying desperately to suckle on their mother's teats after it was already dead.

    Hombre has the most memorable laughter ever.
  • fb1142797643
    October 21, 2009
    fb1142797643
    This film is terribly difficult to rate. Proclaim it genius or garbage -- I'm content to accept either verdict.

    For me, the bottom line became asking myself whether I enjoyed watching it. And the answer was no. I was impatient for it to end, and watched most of it in small chunk... read mores because I couldn't bear the tedium for extended periods. (Surprisingly, the film is legally streamed on YouTube, along with a few other Werner Herzog works on the same channel.)

    What an incredibly bleak picture is painted. The "story" is more of an initial premise than a plot, and most of the action amounts to a small posse of dwarves running around a dirty courtyard wreaking repetitive, semi-improvised chaos on animals, cars and household objects. When the scene with the greatest narrative tension simply involves a character trying to climb onto a bed, it's clear that not much is happening.

    A central motif seems to be that the human characters are no better than cackling chickens -- a theme which is hammered again and again through the actors' *incessant* giggling, which emerges as the film's single most memorable feature (well, either that or the marvelous, unmanned truck which aimlessly rolls in a tight circle throughout most of the film). But if the story aims for some greater philosophical point about anarchy, mankind's beastly nature or the like, why did the cast even need to be dwarves? The characters' height is never commented upon and no average-sized people appear, yet the cars, beds, doors and other items are suited for the taller set. So...what happened to the big 'uns? It's not as if the setting is presented as some nihilistic future where Charlton Heston enters and growls about the six-footers finally destroying themselves for good.

    There is only one cast member who does anything resembling acting -- the others mostly just cavort and giggle, cavort and giggle. I would be curious to see what sort of script Herzog had, prior to shooting. In any case, it's easy to see why the film was controversial, because portraying dwarves as no more than impulsive, unthinking, violent children is far from politically correct. Even the one authority figure, the one oasis of articulate maturity, is left arguing with a dead tree by the end. No one escapes this madness.
  • lesleyanorton
    February 21, 2010
    lesleyanorton
    A boring watch even though the title looked oh-so-promising. Also, after seeing great three-dimensional acting like Peter Dinklage in The Station Agent, Jordan Prentice In Bruges, hell even Harold Sakata as Oddjob, then watching a director make a bunch of dwarfs run around being ... read morechildish and rebellious with little squeaky voices for two hours seems, well, patronising
  • Lemure
    September 1, 2010
    Lemure
    Only a mad German could make a film about anarchic dwarfs. It's not a comfortable watch either, and has a nasty, macabre element. There's also cruelty to animals which I cannot stand. I respect Herzog for making it, but I never want to see it again.
  • ShaneWreck
    September 30, 2010
    ShaneWreck
    "When we're good no one cares. When we're bad everyone remembers."

    I may have given this a five star rating, but that's because the scale only goes to five. This is more like a fifty star flick. This may be one of the most brilliantly insane spectacles I've ever had the priv... read moreilege of seeing. Nothing is safe or sacred as everything not nailed down is destroyed by these little lunatics. And Helmut Doring's laugh is definitely one of the creepiest to have ever found it's way into my ear holes. Add cannibalistic chickens and a crucified monkey to the mix and you've got the makings of a classic in the realm of the insane, a world in which I prefer to spend my time.
  • PumpkinGetsASnakeBite
    September 13, 2010
    PumpkinGetsASnakeBite
    To sit here and write a list of the images that play out on the screen would be pointless. This really is a film that needs to be experienced. But I will say that this could possibly be the greatest film ever made. And it stays in your head like a profound fever dream.
  • RicC
    July 17, 2009
    RicC
    This one is difficult to rate primarily because it's quite weird. The dwarfs are adorable little shits. Their interactions in the institution are sometimes far fetched and bizarre; other times normal, and in seeing that normal tasks we take for granted are performed with difficul... read morety, it's sadly amusing. My favorite scenes would have to be the ones including the blind pair. People at a disadvantage taking advantage of the even more disadvantaged is ironic, for lack of a better word. The script could've been a lot tighter; I'm assuming it's because real time was supposed to add depth or further bizarreness to the characters. It was the only thing keeping me from fully enjoying the film. Herzog's films generally have the same pace, and whenever he has his narration (There's none in this film), I think it guides the film smoother, more easily. It's funny reading that after the completion of the film, he'd had to fulfill a promise to the dwarfs, jumping into cacti.
  • jes25924
    June 27, 2008
    jes25924
    I bought this movie before I watched it on impulse. It's about what I beleive is an insane asylumn completely populated by dwarves who, lock up the guards and run amok. They light things on fire, they cannot properly operate large machinery, they coc...(read more)k fight, and dem... read moreand freedom, and then run around some more. Rebellion has never looked so ridiculous as it does here. Amongst the small group of those who like Werner Herzog films there is an even smaller group who like this film. It's a very long, very tasteless joke, with a great punchline, but it's almost worth it just to watch the finally freed warden and voice of reason for the majority in the film, suddenly begin to argue with a tree, and win!

View All Even Dwarfs Started Small Reviews

Critic Reviews

Vincent Canby
May 9, 2005
Vincent Canby, New York Times

Even Dwarfs Started Small eventually is indistinguishable from its Germanic, side-show spectacle, as if it were a movie that had been conceived by the same kind of perverse, uninvolved intelligence th... Full Review

Don Druker
January 1, 2000
Don Druker, Chicago Reader

Not a vicious denial of the legitimacy of revolt (as too many critics have charged) but a bitter lament over the disservice revolutionaries do their revolutions. Full Review

Dan Jardine
May 1, 2007
Dan Jardine, Apollo Guide

Gobsmackingly good. A great and terrible film. Full Review

Leo Goldsmith
April 23, 2005
Leo Goldsmith, Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Patient and unrelenting, Herzog stages a total deterioration of narrative logic and social norms, as emblematized by a crucified monkey and a cannibalizing chicken. Full Review

Walter Chaw
April 6, 2005
Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

There are few films in the director's portfolio as beautifully shot, scored, and composed as this one. Full Review

Kevin N. Laforest
February 13, 2005
Kevin N. Laforest, Montreal Film Journal

Weirdest movie ever.

Emanuel Levy
July 31, 2005
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

No review available.

Rumsey Taylor
April 10, 2003
Rumsey Taylor, Not Coming to a Theater Near You

No review available.

January 26, 2006
Time Out

Click to read the article Full Review

May 24, 2003
Film4

Click to read the article Full Review

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