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The 16th London Australian Film Festival
2 -8 April 2010
A review by Mary Couzens for EXTRA! EXTRA!
As this film’s Australian director, Warrick Thornton states, ‘Everyone owns a reason for being.’ His is, in the ‘tradition of his ancestors, to tell stories.’ The story Thornton has chosen to tell in Samson and Delilah is one that has seldom, if ever been seen by the public as it is set in the midst of a reservation like encampment outside of Alice Springs where Aboriginals live, most in extreme poverty. It’s main characters, Samson and Delilah are both essentially, orphans, with Samson’s only example being set by a perpetually jamming, reggae obsessed older brother, as Delilah cares for her elderly grandmother, Kitty with whom she creates traditional, Aboriginal paintings which earn them a meagre sustenance from a white man who sells them on to art galleries in the neighbouring town. The world Samson and Delilah inhabit is always, potentially, a landscape that is riff with despair. As Thornton emphasised in the Q & A following the screening of his first, multi-award winning feature length film, substance abuse in this desolate environment is a real problem, especially as the substance being abused is leaded petrol. If that’s difficult to imagine, picture a place that, in addition to its terrain being a boiling hot dustbowl, is dry in the sense that no alcohol is sold there. So while more affluent city teens may choose to experiment with marijuana, alcohol or any number of other, illegal substances, (as teens do) the youths living here are solely reliant on sniffing leaded petrol for their ‘highs’. Though legislation now bans the sale of this brain numbing substance, Thornton noted sadly, that ‘there are always evil people who will bring leaded petrol back to sell it to teenagers.’ But that’s not the only issue this naturalistically paced tale addresses, as its two runaway youths, ostracised in their own community by tragic twists of fate are forced to strike out on their own, ready or not. Already marginalised by nature of who they are and the racism inherent to their town and, country, the pair effectively act as metaphors for, as Thornton offered as an example, ‘teenagers sleeping in doorways in Soho’ here, in London, who’ve run away together, and as a result, have become homeless. Delilah’s strong archetypal earth mother persona, much in evidence at the beginning of their story, at times during their darkening journey seems as though it might not be enough to sustain the wavering stability of the couple, especially as Samson’s habit increasingly threatens his health and well being as well as that of Delilah herself. Far from being a cautionary tale, however, the film’s storyline acts as a fable, inferring that even in a seemingly hopeless situations such as that of these two hapless teenagers, hope is always a possibility, if not likely, eventually, a given in the cyclical scheme of things. In addition, Samson and Delilah is just as riveting a film to watch as it is a beautiful, (often painfully so) one to look at, for Thornton pulls no punches in relation to the harshness of homelessness and substance abuse and his chronologically shot film also makes great use of the vast expanses of sky and land available to him, with well placed footage suggesting time of day and weather which greatly enhance the action and atmosphere of related scenes, lending them a strong sense of place. There are also paradoxes here, suggestive of the Native American long predicted time of ‘blendings’, with Samson’s Aboriginal radio station playing non-stop American Country and Western tunes, his older brother blasting ska-reggae with his band mates outside their shack in this shanty town and Delilah slipping her sole cassette tape, of a Buena Vista Social Club like diva singing Latino torch songs into the tape deck of a parked van, as her only source of escape from the milieu of everyday. The three types of music emphasised in the film, all of which originate from areas outside of the Aboriginal camp, also serve to emphasise the natural curiosity of teenagers about the wider world. The fact that the two actors playing the title roles, Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson are both newcomers who movingly enact their tale, through extremely minimal dialogue, (about six minutes in total in the entire film according to the director) which emphases the significance of their every gesture and look presented a number of challenges to them as well as to their director, which Thornton emphasised after the screening. In a pivotal plot twist, these two runaways to the white ‘woods’ of Alice Springs encounter a lone wolf-looking, sheep like vagrant, fairly oozing with street philosophy and well-meaning encouragement, vividly played by Scott Thornton, who has the most to say, word-wise of any character in the film. The other wise one in this story is Delilah’s wrinkly grandmother Kitty, played with alternating bittersweet and jovial realism by Mitjili Napanangka Gibson, whose knowing amusement over the growing mutual fascination between the two teenagers inspired laughter of recognition from many in the audience. Thornton’s twenty years of experience as a cinematographer have served him well in Winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes (2009) Samson and Delilah, as have his inherent story-telling abilities and repeated ventures into short film-making, as the three combined imbue this feature length film with a pleasing, episodic feel, which is especially apt here, as it is the linking episodes of life which have brought his two young protagonists together. This is a powerful film full of love, despair and ultimately, a sense of belonging. And, given its success, especially in its homeland, Australia, it is also, hopefully, one that may lead to positive change.
www.barbican.org.uk/australianfilm
Booking www.barbican/org.uk http://samsonanddelilah.com.au
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