Samson & Delilah

I just saw this film at a screening in Melbourne following its premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival and was highly impressed. Not often are we shown Aboriginal stories shown on the big screen and told with sensitivity and realism. The filming of the Central Australian landscapes are beautiful and the characters are sweet, endearing and maddening at times (the grandmother is the most joyful character and worth the price of admission alone). Following the story of two star crossed lovers and the reality of Aboriginal life in the Territories, this is a film that should be shown widely and help to dispel the myth that the Australian film industry is somehow lacking - with films like this being produced, it's certainly not - we just need to see more of it.

Saw this at Cinema Nova in Carlton this afternoon..There was a lineup of 100 deep to get into the cinema, something I have never experienced before at Cinema Nova..The movie started and there was silence..around us and in the movie! Words weren't needed..Things we have read, things we have been told about, we watch unfold in front our eyes..Unflinching in in it's portrayal of a culture and people abandoned and victimized by us Australians..The movie itself is brilliant, but what message will we take away from it? Go to work tomorrow and discuss with people how brilliant it is? Have lunch/dinner with friends and rave on about it's searing truth? We were ready to help the people affected by "Black Saturday" so generously, but what about these people who need such a huge helping hand and who have been truly abandoned by us even though they are the original bearers of this great land of ours? Such fantastic pictures we paint of Australia, mate! Sunny, beaches, seafood, Opera House, the Harbour bridge etc..but for these people the reality is painfully far from all that..

Deeply affecting for me, I hope that everyone at the cinema today felt the same..As a nation, we need to galvanize ourselves so that we may save this important heritage from becoming completely extinct..But I fear many of us will shy away at the magnitude of the task ahead..It's a race of people we have hardly ever understood and so different that we steer clear..Yes, I have been one of those people who have looked at them with suspicion in stores, in super-markets, in restaurants and cafés etc..I have learned a few things today and hope I can help in some way..

Watch this please, it's an important movie with huge social implications for our society and for us as Australians..Too beautiful for words, Samson and Delilah will take your breath away

Don't go by the fact, it's an Australian film made by a virtually unknown aboriginal writer-director-cinematographer Warwick Thornton on a shoestring budget with untrained first-time actors. "Samson and Delilah" is a movie Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog or Federico Fellini would have been proud of at the pinnacle of their glory. (And in the true Australian tradition, the next movie by Warwick Thornton may turn out to be a total dud – whatever happened to Stephan Elliott? – but I hope not.)

It's made in the austere style of minimalist emotions pioneered by Bresson in 1950s and 60s. There is no background music, other than a few recordings the two characters listen to on radio or tape; and hardly any dialogues (the two 14-year old aboriginal protagonists don't exchange a single word throughout the film).

Getting bored? Don't be. It's a profoundly touching and satisfying art film, the like of which we have not seen too many in the history of world cinema. It would easily be in my personal top-50 best movies of all times. However, if the best of Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog and Federico Fellini bore you, then please don't bother.

Those of us who have travelled the Australian Outback will recognise the backdrop to "Samson and Delilah" – aboriginals living in squalid housing amidst household garbage, derelict cars and ubiquitous dust. Warwick Thornton sets himself the difficult task of depicting the monotony, hopelessness and despair of this existence without boring and depressing the audience. To a large measure he succeeds, although this film will not appeal to those you go to the cinema to escape the real world. Thornton's great skill is to convey the developing relationship between the star-crossed lovers via body language rather than dialogue. The performances by untrained actors, especially Marissa Gibson (Delilah), are exceptional. Your view of this film is likely to be determined by whether you can empathise with the main characters and their inevitable misadventures. I certainly did, although I concede Samson's character was underdeveloped and very hard to like. Appropriately, the movie ends with a glimmer of hope based on the resilience and determination of aboriginal women.

This is an uncanny film which shows a side to Australia most Australians would prefer not to know. First Time Director Thornton presents a series of small tragedies without preaching, moralising and mostly without words, in a similar way to Cronenberg's masterpiece Spider. He creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, which is confronting but wholly realistic.

The main characters rarely speak. Delilah speaks only in an aboriginal tongue. Samson says one word in the whole movie, and that is a laboured attempt to say his own name. Other characters speak English freely, creating a point of difference between Samson and Delilah and the world they encounter. It also alienates them further.

This film gives a snapshot of the effects of substance abuse, extreme poverty, the violence within aboriginal society as well as the violence directed at it and worse of all the general apathy of the white population to these issues. The acting is unpretentious, the soundtrack sparse and conversation is absent.

The tragedies experienced by aboriginal people have no simple solutions. The first step toward a solution is to be aware that there is a problem. This film does that in spades. The sparse non-verbal presentation makes the viewer have to work to interpret the images shown. In the process one may glean an intuitive understanding, which is often the role of art.

Highly recommended.