Samson & Delilah

Written and Directed by Warwick Thornton, Samson & Delilah is a film about two teenagers in a remote settlement outside of Alice Springs. The movie is advertised as a love story, leading audiences to believe that the film will give them a feel good experience. This is not the case, as you notice after several minutes. The story is told in a very unique way, with not much dialogue at all, the main two character hardly even speak, mainly communicating with each other through noises, gestures and throwing rocks or clumps of dirt. This results in the movie feeling like it goes for 4 hours. The film demands that you need to slow your pulse beat to adapt to listless rhythms, which govern the community’s routines.

The film has a very ‘real’ nature, with the two main characters being played by two inexperienced 14 year old actors who also grew up in remote communities similar to their characters. Delilah takes care of her grandmother, by continuing to make sure he takes her medication and goes to the clinic. Her grandmother is a renowned indigenous artist who lives in poverty as a result of being ripped off by art dealers for her work.  This is an interesting aspect of the film, and makes you wonder if this is really happening in Australia today. Samson lives a lonely life, which revolves around his band, filling th gaps of his life with inhaling petrol and causing trouble in the community.

After Samson gets beaten for hitting one of his brothers in a haze of drugs, and Delilah is beaten and blamed for her grandmother’s death, they run away to Alice Springs. This is were the story twists and the two begin living on the fringe of the city, and are faced with almost every danger of the city, such as boredom, violence, poverty, sexual assault, racism and drugs. They both struggle to survive.

The film is done in a very beautiful way, although the story gives a very grim, raw, look at the challenges that young people face in Aboriginal life in rural Australia. The intense dramatic blows continue throughout the movie, which makes you wonder when its all going to stop. “An inside look at a world rarely, if ever, depicted on the big screen”, Screen International. It is definitely a movie worth watching, to give another perspective of Aboriginal life. The movie takes you to another world, an honest, tender, but tough one.