By Kim Choe
An easy, entertaining watch. British director David Bond goes on a mission to disappear for a month, putting two private investigators on his trail to see just how much information about him they can gather.
The chase is part thriller, part farce. The longer Bond is on the run, the more paranoid he gets. But he makes such amateur mistakes they almost seem deliberate – perhaps he wanted to be found. Regardless, he’s such a likeable guy that as the investigators close in on him, it’s impossible not to want him to win.
Bond’s great disappearing act is nicely broken up by interesting interviews with privacy experts, psychologists, and even former UK Home Secretary David Blunkett. They enforce the somewhat counterintuitive notion that these days, we have to give so much information away just to protect our privacy.
Depending on how you feel about the matter, Erasing David’s message is either sobering or comforting: disappearing is easier thought about than done. Whether it’s in the rubbish we leave, the databases we’re on, or the computers we log in to, there’s always a trace of us somewhere.
Four stars.
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This film is playing as part of the Documentary Edge Festival.
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