Werner Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small: Social Darwinism And Cosmic Absurdity
Only Herzog Could Make A Dwarf Based Mutiny
Naturally, when you hear the word Dwarf, there’s a part of you that will undoubtedly feel the need to giggle given the absurdist feeling that the tone carries with it. At the same time, the guilt that comes with making a mockery out of a physically stunted person is inevitable given the difficulties of living a very limiting existence, in addition to the emotional abuse people of stunted growth often experience for simply looking small. But what is often treated as deformity could be looked at as another aspect of the very nature the average person takes for granted or doesn’t think about how it’s always trying to kill them more than it is trying to hug them.
It was Charles Bukowski who said, “Nature is not kind… Nature doesn’t give a fuck,” and as pessimistic as that line may come off for the average movie goer who would rather see a harrowing tale of short people fighting tyranny, well, that’s why storytellers like Werner Herzog exist to calmly reply with the making of a film that show cases just how impactful the words “that’s too fucking bad” can really hit the nail on the head. In this case, the head is an institution that a pack of Dwarfs fight to overthrow, but in the process, become equally tyrannical in all the ways they would’ve perceived that very same entity as being.
When it comes to the approach Werner Herzog takes to his filmmaking process, the concept of convention is nothing more than a door he knew he had to break down long before insanity became part of his work ethic. This goes way beyond him admitting his willful need to steal a camera from a film school inventory room simply because he needed it. The fact that his madness can go as far the sheer bizarreness of hypnotizing the entire cast of Heart Of Glass (real-fucking trippy film) shows that there is nothing out of line with him making a film where a group of dwarfs go on a mutiny, which essentially devolves into something more socially Darwinistic as opposed to the more anti-tyrannical claim they would make in justifying the randomly abhorrent behavior they all engage in over the course of the film.
Even Dwarfs Started Small is both funny and equally depressing in its own way. On the comedic side, it’s not ashamed to portray the anarchist dwarfs with a childish playfulness that goes beyond their squeaky voices and their manically audio-dubbed laugher. It is through their ability to experiment through their newly achieved freedom that the narrative, or lacking narrative given the sheer randomness of the film’s plot that they truly shine beyond any stereotype a Hollywood studio would most likely grant them.
On the more serious side of the narrative, it is when their experimentation with this newly achieved freedom that they begin to devolve into a manic state of destructive behaviors that include murdering animals, driving and destroying vehicles, and smothering each other in deserts, all the while embracing the sheer chaos of it all with a child-like laughter drenched in an innocence only children can embody yet never truly justify given that underneath it, there is an evil the average person doesn’t pontificate.
In going back to the wisdom of Bukoswki, in his declaration of nature’s apathy, there’s a tragic element in realizing the rightness of his statement. Nature, although from a physical outlook can very beautiful and even captivating in the way it captures a particular image no human tung can describe. At the same time, it is this very exact beauty that can work to arrest and even fool the most simple-minded romantics into believing that there is a better chance of nature offering them a hug when it can sooner devour them or even deprive them of all they believed was essential in the very illustration of their humanity.
One of the main drives of the mutiny within Even Dwarfs Started Small is that of the quasi-hostage situation where a fellow dwarf is being held in the main office of the institutional head (also a dwarf) as his comrades reek havoc and drive the supposedly dictatorial dwarf into insanity. Strangely enough, despite being tied to a chair, the hostage dwarf never acts like a victim, or even in the role of the hostage at the mercy of his hostage taker. If anything, his response is nothing short of jolly laughter that although an easy target for an interpretation of madness, the equal level of calmness displayed in the face of his hostage taker’s empty threats just speaks to the inherent absurdist tone both the film and the role that nature plays into its more realistic element.
Naturally, the idea of an anarchic mutiny against an institutional infrastructure sounds very attractive in essence, and a perfect idea to weave into any narrative, comedic or dramatic. But when displayed in an aimless fashion as Werner Herzog does with what is a very comedic, yet equally haunting depiction on the sheer indifference nature can display when one organism gains power over another, then it only makes the importance of self-reflecting on life that more incremental given how easily we can be deluded by even the most seemingly harmless elements that make anyone drop their guard. In the case of the child-like and even at times adorable appearance the dwarfs embody, the key fact to take into account is that they too are a part of the very nature that will pick off a dead organism just moments after it’s been killed, and then they’ll move on to the next distraction, even at the expense of having zero awareness of what they are witnessing or participating in, good or evil.
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