I Am David - A movie for the power of meaning

Posted on 4/18/09 in Cinema
Reference Address: http://www.ellopos.com/blog/?p=865

[ Pages: 1 2 ]

The Greek TV made us a great present this Easter by playing “I am David”, a 2003 rather unknown movie by Paul Feig.

It seems that the most striking idea in the director’s mind (or what he or the movie company thought it would appear most impressive to the viewers’ mind), the one that could better express and promote the movie, can be summarized by the suggestion believe in the power to change your destiny. This is supported mainly by just a single scene, when the boy-hero, David, says he’d rather die than keep living in the labor camp, and his friend answers that he should find the power to change his destiny, a power that can always be found. The rest of the movie is supposed to narrate how David found the power to escape, leave Bulgaria, go to Greece, enter a boat to Italy, until he finally arrived in Denmark and reunited with his mother.

The movie never succeeded in promoting this power-concept. Despite all the difficulties, David is almost constantly helped by various persons (his co-prisoner and friend-guide, played by J. Caviezel, actually sacrifices himself for the sake of David), so that his salvation is in fact described as a gift rather than as a change-your-destiny will-power. This contradiction between the actual character of the movie and the way it was promoted, makes me think that Paul Feig was perhaps forced by his company to follow some marketing tactics. It doesn’t matter, since the value of the movie lies beyond all this.

Ben Tibber,the actor playing David, “does more acting, often without saying a word, than I have noticed in a film for a long while”, writes a reviewer at imdb. “All throughout the film, the mood of the scene is set just by the expression on his face, especially his eyes, and he can change it in an instant. I watched this young actor in total amazement.”