#helmutdoring

San Marcos, Texas-based filmmaker Jeffrey Garcia has been developing an idea for a screening series for some time.  Recently, with the opening of Studio San Martian, Garcia and other local film lovers have been given a space to watch and discuss offbeat and underappreciated movies together.  Dubbed Martian KINO, Jeffrey Garcia’s inaugural event will consist of a Werner Herzog double-feature, with the first film being Even Dwarfs Started Small. 

The President of an institution (Pepi Hermine) located on a remote island finds himself the focus of a rebellion by the inhabitants of the institution.  The President, his captor Pepe (Gerd Gickel), and all of the rebellious inhabitants that surround the institution are dwarfs, but their small stature does not serve as an obstacle to their resolve and intense need to be respected.  The rebellious group forces the President to become a captor in his own home as they cause damage to the home, the property, the animals and the plants on the grounds, splitting their time between mischievous acts and moments of deep reflection.

Herzog’s ability to put diverging narrative aspects together to help amplify each on an individual level is extremely brilliant.  On the one hand, with the entire film being cast using little people, it is easy to immediately disassociate yourself as a viewer from the events that occur on screen, as there is no immediate sense of relation between us and them.  Our immediate inclination is to look at everything through a skewed lens, and to take the character actions as some sort of folly or something to laugh at.  Upon deeper reflection, especially once we examine the lament of the President or the unchecked actions of the rebel-rousing group, that it becomes abundantly clear there really is no difference between us and them.  Everyone’s frustrations are suddenly easy to relate to, and the wide gap between the tender, mischievous and violent actions taken by members of the group become more of a classification method than their outward appearance.

Based on that counterpoint nature, it makes the actions that the little people are (or aren’t) capable of interesting in context.  The mob is unable to make their way into the facility, and most of their damage is surface level.  Even when the President is visible and objects are thrown at him, many do not threaten him.  When Hombre is trapped in the room with one of the women in the rebellious group in an effort to ‘marry’ the two, Hombre’s stature keeps him from being able to even make it on the bed, thus making the desired act impossible.  It makes it that much more striking in comparison when the group is able to steal a truck, hotwire it, and run it around in a giant circle while they climb in, out and on top of it; or when two of the women from the group kill a hog nearly the size of them; or when the group sets all of the plants and part of the barn on fire.  These acts really drive home the fact that getting what we want and desire is more about will than skill, and that many dangerous distractions exist that can ultimately cause us to channel that overabundance of energy into destructive acts.

The acts, and some of the imagery captured, are quite shocking in all honesty.  The captivity of Pepe at the hands of the President is quite the unsettling image, with Pepe sitting mostly silent as he is bound to a chair, but grinning a menacing grin as the President stresses his predicament.  The image of the dead hog still feeding its sows while the women responsible refuse to admit how they committed the act is sobering in light of the genuine sharing that proceeds it.  Something as simple as a civil dinner quickly devolves into a foodfight where nobody is fed.  Even the interlude of the chicken fending off its prey, a dead mouse, from the other chickens in the coop hangs around long enough for us to really be taken aback by the lifeless mouse not even given the dignity of quick consumption, only to find itself pecked as later upon its demise.

Helmut Doring is intimidating and strong willed as Hombre, with a laugh so infectious that it will stay with you long after the film has completed its run time.  Pepi Hermine exudes a desperate man taking drastic measures in a place of power as The President, with his frantic pacing matching his panicked nature perfectly in contrast to his sharp dress and hairstyling.  Gerd Gickel and his unsettling laugh while in captivity is unnerving in his portrayal of Pepe... the fact that he is the biggest of all the inhabitants makes his captivity that much more odd.