Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah is an unconventional story of young love, set in a remote indigenous community in central Australia.
With no prospects to occupy the locals, Samson is an aimless glue-sniffer whose attempts to hang out with his brothers are disruptive rather than cordial, and therefore dismissed.
Meanwhile, Delilah cares for her grandmother, taking her to the local health centre, and ensuring that she takes her medication every morning. She and her grandmother paint traditional designs on canvas, that are sold at a local town for exhorbitant prices. Needless to say, perhaps, Delilah and her grandmother are paid a pittance for their work.
The film starts off by establishing that Samson and Delilah have a daily routine of sorts. It’s repetitive and ultimately hopeless, relieved occasionally: Samson sniffs petrol and Delilah retreats to the car, to listen to a tape of a foreign crooner whose words are incomprehensible to her, but whose strains evoke images of love and joy.
It’s clear that Samson has an interest in Delilah. However, like his attempts to join his brother’s group, his efforts to reach out to Delilah are clumsy and childish. But he persists. Watching the relationship develop between these two young people is Delilah’s nana, a funny, lovable character.
Though you wouldn’t imagine it possible, things deteriorate and although Samson and Delilah are eventually drawn together, their relationship is tested.
The running time is a concern at first, but this story really is captivating. At one stage during the film, this viewer wondered if the story should have concluded, but it managed to regain momentum and proceed satisfactorily.
This story sounds relentlessly bleak, but it’s not. It’s ultimately a story of hope at the end of an absorbing journey, where the imagery is strong, and the dialogue, powerfully sparse.
In Samson and Delilah, writer/director Warwick Thornton, himself an indigenous Australian, dares to ask questions not only of Australian culture in general, but of his own people. This film is not a guilt trip aimed at anglo Australians. It’s a genuinely emotionally engaging story, whose political undertones are aimed as much at his own people as it is at the rest of us.