March 3-10, 2004 issue of Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper.

Festival Fever

Armed with VCRs and DVD players, Metro's film critics have sampled a hefty share of this year's Cinequest films. Movies marked with a star are recommended.

* Big Enough

(57 min.; U.S.) Longtime documentary maker Jan Krawitz's study of the lives of eight "little people"--genetic dwarves--is an interesting and probably definitive film. Using Michael Apted's technique of observing subjects at different ages, she contrasts the youths of these little people with their lives 20 years later. Her subjects have a range of attitudes from nonchalance to resentment: Karla Lizzo's comment, "If I don't like someone I try to imagine them short," contrasts with the "dwarf power" advocate. Krawitz's subjects often endure the pain of being different, but it's the physical pain of orthopedic surgery that's more considerable--19 surgeries in 30 years, in one case, to try to correct skeletal problems. An informative film and, of course, a counteractive of the kind of "symbolic" use of little people in films that Peter Dinklage ranted against in Living in Oblivion. (A recent example is Satan's hairy pet dwarf in Mel Gibson's hit cruciflick.) (RvB) (Mar 7, 7pm, REP; Mar 9, 7:15pm, MD-SJSU)