Swambi This is a strange film. It is set as a road story of a traumatised teenager travelling across post-war Europe, with little more than a compass, and with flashbacks to the appalling prison camp he has left, and a beautiful woman, whose identity is never clear until the end. The scenes individually can be attractive and reasonably filmed and there is some excellent music, and a positive message, and so may appeal particularly if you like sentimental encounters.However, unless you can totally disengage your rationality, the chances any of this ever actually happening, or everyone being happily able to communicate in English, are clearly zero, making it impossible to engage with the film. The combination of a wooden David a random selection of encounters, and periodic flashbacks gives the whole film a discontinuity, and although I enjoyed some of the characters and the scenery, overall I felt that the film was poorly produced and failed to respect viewers' common sense (by expecting them to believe the impossible).

tperic Truly one of the most heart warming "victim of war" stories I've read, and to see a movie made from this book was cool. The movie itself was very well done. Although the one thing I do think was not played upon very well/enough was that David never knew anything about anything really since his entire life had pretty much been spent in the camp. So when he saw an orange for the first time.....well you can imagine the description of this unknown object in the book as opposed to what they film portrayed. Little things like this.... the church and Mother Mary, the book he kept seeing and the author, I do suggest reading it and watching the movie as well. Both were excellent. As far as the cinematography goes, in my humble opinion it was well done with riveting scenes atop ocean side cliffs, gardens, the mountains, the camp.. all was so full of details it almost made me loose myself in it like i did when I was a kid watching movies, totally absorbed.

TheUnknown837-1 When I sat down to watch "I Am David", I was not expecting something monumental. I was not expecting an extraordinary experience even though one tends to when relating to films of this genre and category. "I Am David" is an independent film by Paul Freig about a young boy (Ben Tibber) who escapes from a Stalinist prison camp and makes a long journey to Denmark for freedom and reunification with someone both he and us are totally uninformed about until the last few moments of the picture and when it does come about, the question we ask is: why did they wait this long to inform us? Why did they waste so much time with all of the stuff we didn't care about? "I Am David" is a letdown of the most disappointing level. And by that I mean, I almost hate myself for having to pan this film. The movie has very, very good intentions and yes, it does have a few tender moments that unfortunately wrap up after a matter of seconds. But still, even at a short length of ninety minutes, "I Am David" is really nothing more than a session of ennui.The fault of this movie goes to the screenplay, which was also written by director Paul Freig. When it comes to tearjerkers, which is what this film was meant to be, an intelligent screenplay is absolutely imperative. It's a given. You need a strong story and good characters otherwise you are left with nothing to hold your interest. And "I Am David" has none of that. The story is absolutely flimsy with twelve-year-old David wandering about the countryside, meeting far too many people, staring at things which do not hold our interest as well as his', and mingles with these rather dull flashbacks that are intended to show the real horror of the evil of that days of Stalin's rule. David encounters a great many people and these just prove to be scenes that go into and out of nowhere. I counted at least three long parts to this film that could have either been reworked or excised.But what's worse of all is that little David is almost entirely on the screen and we never, not even once, sympathize or identify with him. David is well-played by Tibber, so the young actor is not to blame. It's the screenplay that is owed the blame. We never come to understand this tragic kid, he's less confused than we are, we don't relate to him, we don't even come to like him because he's such a flat, dull character. When you've got a film that focuses entirely upon one single character, you need to have a strong figure of a human being to begin with. Take for example, James Stewart's character in "Vertigo" (1958), where the film follows his struggles and experiences almost entirely throughout the course of the film, and we come to understand him, sympathize with him, pity him, and relate to him because he's such a well-realized three-dimensional character that we forget we're looking at Jimmy Stewart and not an actual living person with actual problems. Now David in "I Am David" most certainly has problems, but we still don't come to terms with him. And as for the supporting cast, which comes and goes regularly, never leaves any impact during or after their stay.Ultimately, as good as the intentions of Paul Freig were, "I Am David" does not strike with the impact that it was undoubtedly intended to. I appreciated the ambition of this movie very much, for it is tackling a serious subject, but it just does not work because of a rather flimsy story. And again, with such a serious subject as the reign of Stalin and the people who suffered, without a strong story, there is no hope.

edwagreen Thanks to the brief performance by Joan Plowright, her entering the film near the end brings some semblance of understanding.A boy in a Bulgarian labor camp, at age 13, is helped to escaped by a guard who is about to be transferred. The boy is told how to try and reach Denmark.While I realize that the escape scenes occur at night, it is so utterly dark that you can't see anything.The film deals with the boy's escapades in trying to reach Denmark where his mother is.In accidentally meeting Plowright, who passes him off as her grandson to border guards, she realizes miraculously who he really is and helps him to get to his promised land.This young lad, played by Ben Tibber, reminded me of the main character in 1968's "Oliver!" Had he broken out singing, we would have had a far better film.What was the guard's relationship to the mother? Who was the father? What part is Jim Caviezel trying to realize in this picture? How the movie is trying to answer them is often quite muddled.