Even Dwarfs Started Small

Even Dwarfs Started Small (Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen, 1971) is an early Werner Herzog film you can watch online on iFILM. At a remote institution on a volcanic island, a revolt breaks out: the inmates lock the director in his office and seize the grounds for themselves. Every role is played by a little person — not a gimmick, but the whole point.

The uprising soon curdles into aimless chaos. They torch flowers, torment a pig, send a driverless truck circling the yard and dissolve into helpless laughter — Herzog films the revolution as an absurd, unsettling carnival, where freedom turns out to be as senseless as the order it rose against. Black-and-white photography, the scorched landscapes of Lanzarote, and not a trace of sentiment.

It's a parable about power and human nature with no moral waiting at the end — harsh, strange, and not for everyone. For admirers of European arthouse and the young Herzog, it offers a rare experience that resembles nothing else. Stream Even Dwarfs Started Small (1971) online on iFILM.