Even Dwarves Started Small

This is one of Herzog's earliest films, made around 1969, and it's saturated with late-60s revolutionary subtext. I watched once, and found it a gruelling experience, then decided to give it another go, with Herzog's commentary.

It's a punishing, hardcore experience - several dwarves, or midgets, as Herzog calls them, are in some kind of unspecified institution for criminal dwarves, situated on a barren, bleak island (actually Lanzerote). I managed to work out that an insurrection of sorts takes place, but that was about it as far as making any sense of the action went. Various bizarre happenings happen, and that's it. The dwarves shriek obscenities, and rush around the island, and extraordinary, unexplained events occur. It's a profoundly alienating film in many ways, and it's certainly unusual to see a film that makes absolutely no concessions to its audience.
Herzog talks about the making of the film, and the dwarves with enormous affection, and it's obviously something that's very close to his heart. He was only about 26 when he made it, and, above all, it's a product of its time. I remember seeing films like it at college in the late 60s, and at the art college I was at we attempted to make iconoclastic and radical films. It was like that in those days, so I understand the context in which he made it.
He says that the film was received very badly and proved highly controversial, and I'm not surprised. The Left proved the fiercest opponents, and I know that film studies, which really got going in the 60s and 70s, ignored Herzog. The film makes sense in the context of 1968, though, as the mood was very much that of rebellion for the sake of it. I remember after the famous LSE sit-ins in, when was it? 1968? the students at Oxford Polytechnic, my college, staged one - why? because that was what one did. It was all impossibly incoherent, and in many ways Herzog's film captures the spirit of the times better than any other film I've seen.
Anyway, I can't say that I want to see it again, though you never know. It's extraordinary, unlike anything else I've ever seem before. As Herzog says, it's nothing to do with the entertainment industry - it may be ultimately an inaccessible and alienating film, but, as usual, Herzog's cinematography, and music/sound effects are peerless.