Samson and Delilah (2009)

With a biblical title like this one might come to expect a film of action and excitement. On the contrary it goes at a rather slow pace with very little dialogue and it's set in the middle of Australia where the land is empty and seems to spread out in all directions forever. Every day is the same ending with a sunset all red and gold. Then the black curtain of night descends and the stars come out.The characters in this story are Samson an aboriginal teenager and Delilah an aboriginal girl of similar age living with her aged Granny. The two young characters are well cast. They are inexperienced actors but under good direction they deliver well. The best actor is Granny an old aboriginal woman with the most infectious chuckle. She teaches Delilah the ancient art of dot painting in the hope of selling them to tourists in Alice Springs.The film makers create a Samson who is a part of the land in which he somehow survives. Wirh no job, few friends, he leads an empty life with little hope for the future. His escape is petrol sniffing and listening to western music and admiring Delilah at a distance..When Granny dies, Samson and Delilah go walkabout to Alice Springs camping under a railway bridge. In a typical aboriginal custom they share what little tinned food they have with a stranger. He rebukes them for their petrol sniffing saying it will damage their f***ing brains. This scene does not ring true.The couple wander about in a dazed manner trying to sell paintings. Delilah is knocked down by a car and Samson staggers on back to the campsite unaware of the accident.I thought that Delilah was killed. This was not made clear. The next scene shows her dot painting and care free and looking up into Samson's eyes. A very sudden change in mood I thought from their earlier behaviour. I really felt that eventually they would both die like Romeo and Juliet. But no,the film makers decided to finish with a ray of hope, however slim. Yhe film has a certain magic about it which lingers after the credits roll.

OK, so I finally went out and watched this film and I really did not like it a great deal either. I am Aboriginal and from a small community and now live in the city and I am very familiar with a lot of what the film presents.I think the acting was great and they both came across very real but I think the script or lack of was very unbelievable. I understand why Samson didn't speak, because sniffing petrol actually destroys the brain, but Delilah should have spoke at a lot of times. There is no reason for her not to speak, especially since she seemed at least a bit switched on. I understand her Nan just died and that affected her, but it is just not really real that she would have not have said anything to Samson ever. If she had enough frame of mind to go get paint and canvas and try to sell she would have definitely at least said something to somebody. I think the film maker was trying to be artistic and he sacrificed dialogue for it, and it was not believable to me. I also understand non-verbal communication is a very big part of my culture, but when we are with our own people we talk a lot. I know a lot of people dealing with similar things and they definitely speak. I had no problem with Samson not speaking because of the petrol, but I had a very big problem with Delilah not speaking.Also, people keep saying they communicated through body language and looks, but for the most part they didn't do that either. They did it a little in the first few scenes at the town camp but after that they didn't really communicate at all, it was more like she was just following him around and he was too high off petrol to really care. By not allowing his characters to speak he did not allow them to express their frustrations and anger and this really was a let down.I also did not believe it as a love story. The first scenes of courting made sense but she did not seem to take a shine to him at any part of the movie, it just seems like she stayed with him just because. I mean did she ever even smile at him? Aborginal people are very passionate and it makes no sense to me why they did not really interact with each other or what she liked about him.I think a lot of people who like this film think it gives them a glimpse at remote Aboriginal life, but I think it does not offer any explanations and leaves too much open for interpretation and it seems to me most people interpret wrong. I also am not comfortable with the shoplifting thing and the lack of positive Aboriginal characters. There are never any good Aboriginal characters for our youth to aspire to be like on TV, all we got is sports and music, thats not good.I think the praise this film is getting should have been given to Yolngu Boy ten years ago. That is a film that was criminally overlooked and still is.regarding Samson and Delilah, I liked the portrayal of petrol sniffing but as an "optimistic love story" that it is presented as, I see no optimism in the film just hopelessness (which I personally don't feel reflects reality) and I did not believe it as a love story either.I think it might have worked as a short film but as a feature film it is very underdeveloped and really does not allow people to connect with the characters or the story. I have no problem with people liking art type films, but when it is presented as being real and as a reflection of Aboriginal life in remote communities but it really is not real because it is trying to be artsy, I have a problem.

It was total and utter rubbish. Made by an amateur; but because it was aboriginal the right wing blue rinse set have to say how good it was. It is insulting that they are mentioning this film in the same sentence as "Oscar". "You can fool some of the people all of the time - you can fool all of the people some of the time - but you can not fool all of the people all of the time".It was badly made, badly acted, and there was no 'direction' at all. Huge big gaps in the story, and the filming. A blank screen for half a minute or more, is not good theater.A big No for this one.

I watched about half an hour of this clunker on the television before I fell asleep. Sadly, petrol sniffing kids who are too lazy to even pick up their own garbage are not all that interesting. Dirty, dull, dreary and decadent. If this movie wins awards, you can see why the Australian film industry is such poor shape. Will anyone actually pay to see this stuff? Samson and Delilah gives self indulgence a bad name. The ABC ran a documentary on the making of the movie, which was even worse than the film. How does this rubbish get funded? The questions were simpering and the subject matter banal. This movie isn't worth ten lines but I have to write them otherwise my comments won't be recorded.