Published 2018 on Down Under Flix
Director: Warwick Thornton
Director: Warwick Thornton
Stars: Rowan McNamara, Marissa Gibson, Mitjili Napanangka Gibson, Scott
Thornton
Warwick
Thornton’s period Western Sweet
Country is rolling into Australian cinemas on a wave of fairly
unanimous acclaim (not quite Paddington 2 unanimous acclaim, but widespread nonetheless)
following a successful festival streak in 2017. Thus it’s timely to
revisit Samson & Delilah,
the 2009 film which saw Thornton graduate from shorts to features and announced
him as a vital Indigenous Australian filmmaker of the same calibre as
contemporaries Rachel Perkins and Ivan Sen.
Samson
(Rowan McNamara) and Delilah (Marissa Gibson) are teenagers living in a remote
Indigenous community in the Northern Territory. Samson inhales petroleum,
struggles to play his brother’s guitar, and crushes on Delilah. Delilah serves
as primary caregiver to her grandmother, and while she responds coolly to
Samson’s affections she’s not entirely indifferent. Their days and daily
rituals are largely identical and listless, but following Delilah’s
grandmother’s death the pair of outcasts hit the road together and travel to
Alice Springs, where they grapple with homelessness, social ostracization, and
addiction.
Beauty
can be wrung from tragedy or tragic circumstances, as seen from Shakespeare’s
finest works through to most things Ingmar Bergman ever pointed a camera at.
Writer-director-cinematographer Thornton and company wring beauty from Samson
and Delilah’s tragic circumstances. From its opening scene of Samson waking and
inhaling fumes from the tin by his bedside, Charley Pride playing on the radio
in the background and morning sun creeping through the cracks in the wall, a
tragic beauty looms over Samson
& Delilah in images and moments of monotony, rejection,
dejection, and defeat, but also solidarity, companionship, and love. The film
is pervaded by its director and crew’s deeply felt empathy for its subjects,
and this testifies to the evolution of Indigenous Australian stories on film
that’s come with bestowing the means to tell these stories to Indigenous
directors. While older titles from white filmmakers like, say, The Fringe Dwellers or Manganinnie – both
reviewed previously on Down Under Flix and both excellent (see here and here) – were undeniably
sympathetic, they nonetheless lacked a certain perspective and immediacy of
identification, no matter how sincere their intentions. In contrast, Samson & Delilah doesn’t
simply depict the trials faced by many Indigenous Australians with liberal
humanist sympathy; there’s a gravity and authenticity here that makes their
pains palpable.
Delilah’s
grandmother in the film is presented as a churchgoer, and there are overt
Biblical parallels (but also digressions) in the film’s title and naming of
characters. Like the Biblical Samson, the film’s Samson can’t quite get his act
together, prioritising immediate vice and escape over higher purpose. The
onscreen Delilah, however, differs from her Biblical namesake. Where the
Bible’s Delilah is a traitor and temptress whose actions initiate Samson’s
fall, this Delilah is Samson’s saviour. She’s also the more resilient of the
titular couple, suffering the greatest trials (much of them, mercifully,
offscreen) but ultimately enduring and helping to elevate Samson above his
addictions. On the subject of parallels, it’s also hard not to compare Samson & Delilah to an
earlier trailblazing movie from an Indigenous Australian director about two
Indigenous teens of the opposite sex, Ivan Sen’s Beneath Clouds (reviewed here). Like Sen, Thornton cast
two young non-actors in his leads, both of whom deliver terrific, at times
exquisite, and oft-non-verbal performances (performances which, like those
in Beneath Clouds,
represent lighting in a bottle, given that neither McNamara nor Gibson, nor
Sen’s earlier stars Danielle Hall and Damian Pitt – who died tragically young
in a car crash – ever appeared on film or television again). Where Beneath Clouds’ young
protagonists are brief travel companions who forge a fleeting but intense bond
of friendship, Samson and Delilah form a romantic coupling, even if the film
ignores most of the typical signifiers of onscreen romance accumulated over a
century plus of rom-coms and weepies. The film’s promotional tagline – “True
love” – and its indifference to the stock traits of onscreen romance hint at a
bond deeper and more complex than romantic movie cliches can convey; indeed,
one deeper than words, given how little Samson and Delilah speak to each other.
While
my review – and indeed most plot synopses – of Samson & Delilahmake the film sound
overwhelmingly dark, Thornton’s film is ultimately optimistic, with its
protagonists achieving a version of domesticity together. I’m aware this
statement skirts spoiler territory, but I’ve heard far too many people say
they’ve avoided watching the film because it sounds too depressing. Samson & Delilah is
bleak at times – particularly in its unflattering depiction of white
Australia’s indifference, and rightly so – and this positive denouement doesn’t
necessarily spell happily ever after for its protagonists (McNamara’s
subsequent run-ins with the law off-screen are, sadly, indicative of the challenges faced by rural
Indigenous youth like Samson). But Thornton loves and rewards his characters
for the hardships they endure (with viewers also reaping the benefit),
providing them with respite and contentment, if only temporary.
Samson
& Delilah is
an arresting start to the viewing and reviewing year on Down Under Flix. If I
see five films as good over the course of this year, it’s going to be a special
year…
Ben Kooyman