Samson & Delilah - A Personal Reflection
A love story, political statement and awareness campaign are motives that spring to mind when describing Director Warwick Thornton’s intentions for his breathtaking film “Samson and Delilah”. This raw and wonderfully paced feature combines the best of modern Australian cinema with the worst of western apathy, through scenes of extensive substance abuse coupled with powerful direction. Thornton has gone a long way to ensure that the authenticity of the film is above reproach, and in doing so guarantees an unsettling experience, where the viewer is drawn into the harshness of the indigenous plight.
Within this suffering however, lies a teenage love story set in the context of modern Indigenous Australia. It is testament to the human spirit, and to Thornton’s insight, that this love story develops normally, despite the tragic environment. Whether it be a secret view from the back of a four wheel drive at an unsuspecting dancing Samson, or the social ineptitude of a boy who throws rocks at a girl he likes, everyone can appreciate the nuances that embody teenage love displayed here. Samson (played by Rowan McNamara), and Delilah (Marissa Gibson) develop their relationship further when they are exiled from their already fringed community outside of Alice Springs, becoming dependant on one another for survival. However, despite the film taking a dark and traumatic turn from this point on, it ends on a wonderfully optimistic note, with Delilah nursing Samson back to health as she did with her Grandmother earlier. It reflects Thornton’s optimistic view of the future, despite the current hardships. However, as Thornton explains: “…this film isn’t the defining next step in reconciliation. And it’s dangerous for people to have to, or want to, need that”[1]. Instead he motivates individuals to ask themselves what they can do to become part of the solution.
Inequality is an overarching theme in Samson and Delilah, but the cause of that inequality, according to Thornton, is far more important than its effect[2], and there are several ways in which he conveys this. The most effective are the directional choices, from the pacing, soundtrack, hand-held cinematography, and lack of dialogue, which combine to make the sum of the tragic elements more relevant and contemporary. The sparseness of some vital scenes for example, mirrors that of life in the community Samson and Delilah live in, and creates a far more tangible reality than would otherwise exist. Thornton acts as writer and cinematographer too, drawing on his expertise in filmmaking and his own connection to the Katej people who live in central Australia. In addition to directional choices, these aspects further increase the authenticity of the problems depicted on screen, heightening the urgency of the problems shown. In this setting, we are given time to reflect on what may have caused the suffering, how we could have let it get so bad, and more importantly, what is being done to rectify the situation? It is these questions that are taken away from the film, not the enduring impression of substance abuse and violence that could so easily have been the case in the hands of a lesser caretaker.
Although Samson and Delilah asks these ‘big picture’ questions throughout its relatively short duration, more specific points are scattered throughout the piece. Although it only occupies a small amount of screen time, the portrayal of art as a commodity is one of these, and deserves a larger off-screen debate. After Samson and Delilah are exiled from their community, Delilah attempts to sell a piece of work to the gallery she earlier spotted featuring her Grandmother’s work (part of which Delilah herself may well have painted). She makes a courageous, yet clumsy pitch to the indifferent salesman who rejects her new piece with a disinterested glance. Delilah later returns with a new piece, this time of a terrifying red hand on a black background, thrusting it in the faces of unsuspecting café patrons nearby. Her frustration and incredulity are heartbreaking, and for a fleeting moment we feel personally accountable for her situation, sitting in the café as the on-screen patrons do, eating our extravagant lunches.
However, this short sequence marks a much larger problem with Indigenous art in Australia. Without a firm grasp of ancestral time and the abundance of cultural history poured into Indigenous art, there can be no proper appreciation of the works. What Thornton demonstrates so vividly in this short passage is a desire for the exotic, without an understanding of the context of the work in question. It is exploitation on a level that is difficult to acknowledge in a first world country like Australia. This desire for the exotic exacerbates the problem further, by suppressing any real artistic exploration on the part of Indigenous artists who already struggle to make a living selling to these types of markets. Delilah’s second painting, although ‘un-authentic’ in the sense of cultural tradition, has just as much artistic merit than her first, being emotionally and politically charged to a fantastic degree (see fig.1). In years gone by, Indigenous artists such as Albert Namatjira were criticised for their departure from traditional methods in a similar way[3], and the problem is likely to continue if the western obsession with ‘authenticity’ goes on unabated.
fig.1 Screenshot from “Samson and Delilah”, 2009, Directed by Warwick Thornton.
Amidst the political and social implications however, is the simple story of two teenagers falling in love in a fractured country. It is in this simple setting that the causes of their plight are brought into sharp relief, and we have the time to ask questions that are confronting and difficult to respond to. Thornton doesn’t have the answers, and this is the most unsettling aspect of the film. Despite this, he shows us that there are some things to be optimistic about, and we what we can take away from the film is a sense of urgency in solving the crises’ of marginalisation and exploitation in Indigenous Australia, so that simple love stories like Samson and Delilah’s, can in future be allowed to flourish in safer surroundings.
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