They Called Me David
Ten years old, David lives in the same small white room where he has spent his entire life, his father for whom he was told he is named never having visited him to offer company and comfort, only the masked men and women who give him his medicine and conduct their tests, always more tests, the results of which they are clearly unprepared for.
David seen as an object rather than a person, whatever purpose he exists for is unknown to him, a being given no guidance or correction, no love or encouragement, left to play in the dark and travel in his own mind, something his keepers remain unaware that he can do, making his own light in distant places with nuclear energies…
A short film directed by Lindsay Hallam and written by Liam Dunn, They Called Me David is shaped like a cold war horror akin to The Damned, children raised in underground chambers to be survivors, the indifference of the scientists to what they have created expressing itself as what might be seen by some as cruelty, though knowing nothing different David (voiced by Millie Hallam) sees it as the natural order of things.
The overacting of the scientists perhaps intended to be the interpretation of a child who is being mocked, it is a moment without which the film would be still more disturbing, carrying echoes of The Chrysalids and Chocky, two novels which dealt with unusual children and the adults who underestimated them, but where John Wyndham always offered warmth in the bleakest situations, there is no comfort to be found here.
They Called Me David is streaming on the Arrow platform now
