EVEN DWARVES STARTED SMALL

Although this is not really an exploitation movie, elements of exploitation are used throughout, such as excessive violence, maniacal laughter and midgets.

EVEN DWARVES STARTED SMALL (1970)

EVEN DWARVES STARTED SMALL (1970), written and directed by Werner Herzog, is a disturbing movie which explores the evil destructive nature of roguish mob mentality. The fact that this meanness and destruction is caused by a group of “little people” further magnifies the truly horrific nature of their destructive behavior.
The heinous acts of these midgets are in response to the imprisonment of their fellow “inmate” for allegedly raping a female instructor while the principal is away. The group of nine midgets storm the principal’s house and grounds in an attempt to free their rapist friend Pepe. They kill chickens, chase each other through the grounds, hit each other, torture each other and are always ganging up on one or another of the group.
It was shot at a low angle looking up at the midgets, giving the sense that they are the proper proportion. The world around them is overly huge and “wrong.”
These little people ridicule each other constantly. It’s miraculous that the group could ever organize enough to all throw stones at the windows of the principal’s mansion or all join to destroy the only palm tree on the island. These scenes are juxtaposed with scenes of chickens cannibalizing each other and fighting over a dead mouse. (Herzog says on the commentary track that chickens are profoundly stupid. Perhaps these juxtaposed shots further reflect the stupidity of mob mentality and social scapegoating.)
EVEN DWARVES STARTED SMALL was shot in black and white to highlight the stark contrasts of this nightmarish place where the world has so overgrown its inhabitants. The oversized natural world, further accentuated through sweeping circular panoramic shots, makes the surrealistic violence of the midgets seem more of a response meant to assert some sort of control over their environment.
Is this also a reflection of societal violence and scapegoating? Do people in “normal” society assert control over their uncontrollable natural environment by ganging up on the weaker and smaller? What is the trigger for this behavior in ordinary society? Is it just Darwinian? If so, then humanitarianism is a great lie, a sad and impractical ideal which was doomed from the start. I cry at the prospect /realization that humanitarianism probably never really existed, even when it was espoused by intellectuals in its heyday in the 20th century. Human beings are too disgustingly base to truly care about one another, and those who DO care are scapegoated and destroyed. The more one practices humanitarianism, the faster and more evilly that person will be destroyed by the stupidity of mob mentality and base animalistic tendencies. There is no hope for humanity. The rapists are lionized and the cruel destroy the just. The blossoming flowers are watered with gasoline and set ablaze as barbarians laugh, torture and cannibalize each other. Just look around.
----------------------review by Anne Heller