I Am David (2003, PG)
Six years ago, my sister-in-law informed me that one of my favorite books, Anne Holm’s North to Freedom, had been made into a movie called I Am David. Let this serve as an encouragement (?) to those who think I’ll never follow through on their recommendations: Last week, we finally saw the movie.
Let me get the standard litany out of the way: The movie isn’t nearly as good as the book. It takes the plot, the setting, and the characters, but loses most of what makes the book sublime. To be fair, translating David’s thoughts and transformations to film is probably impossible. This may explain why I rarely find watching a movie to be an exalting experience.
That said, I Am David is very much a worthwhile movie to see. It is the story of 12-year-old David’s escape from the only life he can remember: the Communist prison camp in which he was raised, primarily by a man named Johannes.
(Johannes, incidentally, is from the Alsace region of France, and in consequence David’s journey takes him through Basel, a fact that escaped me on previous readings of the book, since at the time Basel had no particular significance for me. That part is missing from the movie, however, so don’t be looking for shots of the Münster. In fact, all of the movie—with scenes in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and Denmark—was filmed in Bulgaria.)
Ben Tibber, who plays David, does a better job than many adult actors I’ve seen; his face got him the job, and he makes great use of it for wordless expression. Jim Caviezel plays Johannes so movingly that I wasn’t in the least surprised to learn that he also played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ.
The PG rating is because of some violent prison camp scenes, but the movie does a great job of suggesting the horror without being unnecessarily graphic. My primary complaint, other than the loss of the most important parts of the book, is that several of the movie’s characters are less pleasant than in the book—the Italian sailor demanding a bribe, rather than simply helping David, for example.
Naturally, I strongly suggest reading North to Freedom rather than watching the movie, but if you’re not going to read the book, I Am David would be a great addition to your video experience.
