Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen)

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77%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 5,250

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Movie Info

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, dwarfs 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

Rating:

NR
Genre:

Drama, Horror
Directed By:

Werner Herzog
Written By:

Werner Herzog
In Theaters:

Sep 16, 1970 wide
On Disc/Streaming:

Dec 14, 1999
Runtime:

96 minutes

Cast

Gerd Gickel

Paul Glauer

Helmut Döring

Critic Reviews for Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen)

All Critics (9) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (9)

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 that had created the world of the film.

May 9, 2005 | Rating: 3/5

Vincent Canby
New York Times
Top Critic
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.

Jan 1, 2000 | Full Review…

Don Druker
Chicago Reader
Top Critic
The product of a rigorous imagination.

Jan 7, 2020 | Full Review…

Arthur Ross
Los Angeles Free Press
Gobsmackingly good. A great and terrible film.

May 1, 2007 | Rating: 93/100 | Full Review…

Dan Jardine
Apollo Guide
Patient and unrelenting, Herzog stages a total deterioration of narrative logic and social norms, as emblematized by a crucified monkey and a cannibalizing chicken.

Apr 23, 2005 | Full Review…

Leo Goldsmith
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
There are few films in the director's portfolio as beautifully shot, scored, and composed as this one.

Apr 6, 2005 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…

Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central
Weirdest movie ever.

Feb 13, 2005 | Rating: 3/5

Kevin N. Laforest
Montreal Film Journal

View All Critic Reviews (9)

Audience Reviews for Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen)

Apr 02, 2012

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 haunt your nightmares for years to come). Animal lovers beware.

Greg S Super Reviewer
Sep 30, 2010

"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 privilege 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.

Shane D Super Reviewer
Jun 21, 2010

mad film from werner hertzog concernng a community of llttle people, as we join them, there rampageing and causing havoc, with there man inharge locked away in his office, and thats generally, bt etertaining and sinister it is, lots of moments to enjoy, and weird also, and one guys laugh that i probely get to y, antheodd film ive now se from werner

scott g Super Reviewer
Feb 21, 2010

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 childish and rebellious with little squeaky voices for two hours seems, well, patronising

Lesley N Super Reviewer