User reviews

This is an uncanny film which shows a side to Australia most Australians would prefer not to know. First Time Director Thornton presents a series of small tragedies without preaching, moralising and mostly without words, in a similar way to Cronenberg's masterpiece Spider. He creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, which is confronting but wholly realistic.

The main characters rarely speak. Delilah speaks only in an aboriginal tongue. Samson says one word in the whole movie, and that is a laboured attempt to say his own name. Other characters speak English freely, creating a point of difference between Samson and Delilah and the world they encounter. It also alienates them further.

This film gives a snapshot of the effects of substance abuse, extreme poverty, the violence within aboriginal society as well as the violence directed at it and worse of all the general apathy of the white population to these issues. The acting is unpretentious, the soundtrack sparse and conversation is absent.

The tragedies experienced by aboriginal people have no simple solutions. The first step toward a solution is to be aware that there is a problem. This film does that in spades. The sparse non-verbal presentation makes the viewer have to work to interpret the images shown. In the process one may glean an intuitive understanding, which is often the role of art.

Highly recommended.

I just saw this film at a screening in Melbourne following its premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival and was highly impressed. Not often are we shown Aboriginal stories shown on the big screen and told with sensitivity and realism. The filming of the Central Australian landscapes are beautiful and the characters are sweet, endearing and maddening at times (the grandmother is the most joyful character and worth the price of admission alone). Following the story of two star crossed lovers and the reality of Aboriginal life in the Territories, this is a film that should be shown widely and help to dispel the myth that the Australian film industry is somehow lacking - with films like this being produced, it's certainly not - we just need to see more of it.

This movie is one that demands something from the movie goer. It needs to grow on you slowly. The pace is slow and if the audience is patient and prepared to give something back to the film it will affect you. I found it repetitive at first but rather than switching off I stayed with it and was glad I did. The acting is excellent. It is not a movie for the feint hearted and it is depressing. It should be. It is a film about hopelessness. Its hard to like Samson yet there are moments he smiles and your heart goes out to him. Della is superb as is the old woman and the drunken man who lets them share his home. Films like this should be made as there is an honesty you rarely see, the film is not dogged by political correctness. There is a danger people will not feel compassion for the characters as they are not glamorous likable people. The more you allow the film to touch you and you open your heart and your mind you will feel great compassion and love.

Don't go by the fact, it's an Australian film made by a virtually unknown aboriginal writer-director-cinematographer Warwick Thornton on a shoestring budget with untrained first-time actors. "Samson and Delilah" is a movie Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog or Federico Fellini would have been proud of at the pinnacle of their glory. (And in the true Australian tradition, the next movie by Warwick Thornton may turn out to be a total dud – whatever happened to Stephan Elliott? – but I hope not.)

It's made in the austere style of minimalist emotions pioneered by Bresson in 1950s and 60s. There is no background music, other than a few recordings the two characters listen to on radio or tape; and hardly any dialogues (the two 14-year old aboriginal protagonists don't exchange a single word throughout the film).

Getting bored? Don't be. It's a profoundly touching and satisfying art film, the like of which we have not seen too many in the history of world cinema. It would easily be in my personal top-50 best movies of all times. However, if the best of Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog and Federico Fellini bore you, then please don't bother.

Samson and Delilah, for the most part, appears to play out like True Romance as directed by Abbas Kiarostami; a love story of sorts between two relatively down and out people slowly chugging along in their lives, and yet pertaining to whatever law exists, within a working community torn apart by squalor and down-trodden existences whom decide to high tail it out of there in an attempt to start over out in the wider world. It is to first time director Warwick Thornton's credit that he manoeuvres a story about two disparate youngsters of opposing genders down a path that more-so resembles something such as Malick's Badlands than something in the vein of True Romance; Samson and Delilah a really rather wonderfully executed coming of age piece set amidst the lower echelons of Australia's indigenous community, a political parable linked to Australia's indigenous communities' 'place' in Australian society and a rather sweet, underplayed love story with ample attention to the duality those therein share.

The film begins with one half of the titular duo waking up on this, another hot; lazy; sluggish morning in dusty Outback Australia. We wake up into the film with him, a young boy named Samson, played by Rowan McNamara and here cutting rather-a dash as Lasith Malinga, whom lives alone with his brother in a small wooded house in a small street doubling up as an entire community. Samson enjoys sniffing motor oil, a batch of which he has tucked away in a plastic bottle enabling him to remove the lid once in a while so as to inhale a fix. In other areas of living, the man is positively Neanderthal; the drawing on walls calls to mind that of crude scribblings on caves one might have done millennias ago, his lack of speech going hand in hand with his ambling around from place to place – attempts at 'wooing' a female ending as we predict whilst the clubbing of a wild animal during a bout of Heaven-only-knows-what instills a crude, highly primitive sense about the guy. Upon waking up, he tries to steal a quick five minutes on his brother's guitar, a musical instrument requiring grace and precision, and he does so very badly before he is forced off it: dismissing those whom go on to strike up a good sound as a four-man-band.

Additionally awakening on this morning is Delilah, and additionally played by first-time actress Marissa Gibson; a character whom must care for her elderly grandmother, her last surviving relative and make sure to provide her with the correct medicine and such in what is a demonstration of precision and grace instilled into an activity which Delilah is able to execute. Delilah and her relative additionally spend their time creating neat mosaics on basic canvases so that they may be sold in a nearby town, activities again which require creativity and precision which it's established the man Delilah shares the title of the film with lacks. Samson and Delilah converge, once, outside of a store during this day; very little is said but much is implied through body language and suggestion, an early coming together a demonstration of the pair of them communicating through action and reaction which will go on to forge the essential characteristics of their bond.

In the evenings, music is again an item that arises; for Samson, the tuning into an FM radio as a DJ churns out popular music for anybody willing to send in a request is the order of proceedings; his lack of having a definitive taste and therefore having to feed off of what everybody else wish to hear prominent. Delilah, on the other hand, tunes into a very specified brand of music; a tape cassette of Latin American music which she enjoys by herself in the confines of an automobile on its tape player. These characters could not be any further apart in this sense, and yet opposites begin to attract; a final instance of binary opposition as the catalysts which push them together being the shooting of Delilah through hues of red as Thornton constructs an objectification of Samson around her gaze: his wiry shirtless dancing to blued out compositions having her come to feel what she previously did not.

The film mutates into the having of them leave the slum, a branching out into the wider world driven by two tragic instances that befalls either character; instances specifically linked to internal problems with whatever little family each of them has, a breaking up through whatever means or for whatever reason ultimately the item that pushes the disparate pair together. The leaving of the township for a homeless existence beneath a flyover bridge sees them maintain a solid partnership for the best part without ever actually saying anything; an unusual characteristic that will for some carrying with it problems more broadly linked to realism but in actuality, is probably some sort of sociological metaphor for the general marginalisation of Australia's indigenous people (that is to say, the literal taking away of their voices) by the state itself. Thornton strikes us as a competent director, his cine-literacy rendering this on screen silent romance one of which is executed with the sort of vigour imbued within, whilst most probably drawing inspiration from, something such as Chaplin's City Lights. Regardless of sources of inspiration, and more-over the mere labelling of it as "Kiarostami does Natural Born Killers by way of City Lights", the film is an exciting; enthralling debut from someone whose future work ought to be looked forward to with great anticipation.

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.

Saw this at Cinema Nova in Carlton this afternoon..There was a lineup of 100 deep to get into the cinema, something I have never experienced before at Cinema Nova..The movie started and there was silence..around us and in the movie! Words weren't needed..Things we have read, things we have been told about, we watch unfold in front our eyes..Unflinching in in it's portrayal of a culture and people abandoned and victimized by us Australians..The movie itself is brilliant, but what message will we take away from it? Go to work tomorrow and discuss with people how brilliant it is? Have lunch/dinner with friends and rave on about it's searing truth? We were ready to help the people affected by "Black Saturday" so generously, but what about these people who need such a huge helping hand and who have been truly abandoned by us even though they are the original bearers of this great land of ours? Such fantastic pictures we paint of Australia, mate! Sunny, beaches, seafood, Opera House, the Harbour bridge etc..but for these people the reality is painfully far from all that..

Deeply affecting for me, I hope that everyone at the cinema today felt the same..As a nation, we need to galvanize ourselves so that we may save this important heritage from becoming completely extinct..But I fear many of us will shy away at the magnitude of the task ahead..It's a race of people we have hardly ever understood and so different that we steer clear..Yes, I have been one of those people who have looked at them with suspicion in stores, in super-markets, in restaurants and cafés etc..I have learned a few things today and hope I can help in some way..

Watch this please, it's an important movie with huge social implications for our society and for us as Australians..Too beautiful for words, Samson and Delilah will take your breath away

"Samson and Delilah" isn't a badly made movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I nonetheless mostly hated it.

It tells the story of two lonely teenagers in aboriginal Australia, pretty much discarded on the trash heap of Australian society (as is the entire aboriginal community if this movie is any indication) who go off together to eke out an existence of sorts in an unnamed Australian city. It chronicles in grisly detail their descent into drug use and homelessness, heaping one horribly depressing indignity on another until it becomes nearly unwatchable. It's not that I don't feel bad for people whose lives are like this. On the contrary, I feel terrible, which is why a movie that exists for no other reason than to make me feel as bad as possible feels like a sermon delivered by some righteous do-gooder full of lessons I've already learned.

The last 20 minutes of the film do turn around and offer the hint of a happy ending, but it had already lost me by then and whatever even slightly positive conclusions the movie came to felt false.

Grade: D

Those of us who have travelled the Australian Outback will recognise the backdrop to "Samson and Delilah" – aboriginals living in squalid housing amidst household garbage, derelict cars and ubiquitous dust. Warwick Thornton sets himself the difficult task of depicting the monotony, hopelessness and despair of this existence without boring and depressing the audience. To a large measure he succeeds, although this film will not appeal to those you go to the cinema to escape the real world. Thornton's great skill is to convey the developing relationship between the star-crossed lovers via body language rather than dialogue. The performances by untrained actors, especially Marissa Gibson (Delilah), are exceptional. Your view of this film is likely to be determined by whether you can empathise with the main characters and their inevitable misadventures. I certainly did, although I concede Samson's character was underdeveloped and very hard to like. Appropriately, the movie ends with a glimmer of hope based on the resilience and determination of aboriginal women.

Samson and Delilah! Hmm. Just recovering from "Tulpan" and the dose of boredom I endured watching it. I was not too keen with the prospect S&D would be. I did not read anything about it but knew it was about Aborigines people, and it also had very high review from well-known Australian film reviewers. But if this little, I learned that often you have to find out for yourself. It certainly was slow and I had to make an effort to stay with it as I was also nursing a "cold". Although by then in a fairly negative mood, I had to give in the cinematography so well executed and pleasing to the eye. As for the story, I found it difficult to enjoy, yet one can appreciate which is quite a different thing and could well have been the motivation to make this film. I read some previous comments here, and yes there were a lot of unrealistic events and handling, not mentioned previously, both kangaroo "hunting" seemed rather simplistic but I also felt, perhaps too much elaboration might distract the viewer from the intended theme. Some did not like the lack of dialogue, to me it made the story more powerful, often these days we rave on about communication or the lack of it, but I'm not quite convince this is entirely or necessarily done through a lot of verbal expression. So this worked for me. Recently I taught myself to make some noise blowing through what we call a "didgeridoo" and in some small ways thought that at least I would be treated with a little of its playing. Thank you for not giving it to me as I concluded it was much better suited without it or without other "clichés" often attached to Aboriginal representation; and thank you also for not going to the other extreme towards more depressing facts about Aboriginal reality. Possibly the impact is so stronger. I'm glad I attended this session and perhaps got more out of it than I did out of "Australia"

A really good film showing the grim realities of Aboriginal life through the 'love-story' of Samson and Delilah.

What really impressed me with the film was the fact that both lead roles were played by amateurs. Both played their characters incredibly and (hopefully) have long and successful acting careers ahead of them.

Sure, there was little dialogue between them (Samson only says one word in the whole film) but to be honest as the film went on I grew to like this. Yes, you could argue that more dialogue would have developed their characters more, but by the end I had become comfortable with it and was glad that the director had taken this approach.

The cinematography is superb and the topic both harrowing and sad.

I scored the film an 8 because the last 10 minutes is basically romantic nonsense. Really the film should have finished at the car accident, but after a film that had so little light and positiveness then I can understand that it needed the solace that the 'romantic' ending gave it.

Great film based on what can only be described as insider knowledge. Loved the non verbal communication. Dialog isn't necessary to make this film work.

Yep people do take their ill relatives around to shop, nurses clinics, etc gee just like in our society, This shows the level of dedication of people in these communities. Remember these people live in their country not necessarily where there is employment and opportunity. I know of one teenager in a remote community who carries his grandmother up and down the stairs of their raised house at least 4 times a day. A bit more respect for the elderly and each other than in our white society! Yep retribution is a part of life and takes many forms, including bashings. The film showed the life of a group of people living in desperate circumstances from a vastly different culture. Don't disbelieve what the film is trying to convey, embrace it as a point of difference and learn from it.

Sorry bit of a rant but the film was great and managed to suck my wife in for the duration despite her white disbelief of the lives of the people and the living conditions.

Maybe our veteran local critics Margaret and David went overboard giving this movie five stars, but it does have a punch to it. We see the world of aboriginal fringe-dwellers from the inside, and it is not a comfortable sight. Yet Warwick Thornton does not shove the story in his audience's faces; neither does he romanticize it, even though it is at heart a love story.

At 14, Sampson (Rowan McNamara) is a pretty hopeless character. A petrol-sniffing orphan who lives with his older brother and some other young men in a Central Australian bush hovel, he spends his days sniffing petrol and hanging around the camp. He develops an interest in Delilah (Marissa Gibson), an attractive 16 year old who looks after her ancient grandmother Nana (Mitjili Napanangka Gibson). Nana, despite age and infirmity, is still churning out for a pittance traditional dot paintings which reach fantastic prices in an Alice Springs art gallery. But Nana passes away in her sleep and Delilah is beaten by her aunts for letting the camp's cash cow die. Although not over-enamoured with Sampson she allows him to take her to Alice Springs, where they take up residence under the Todd River bridge, with other homeless people, including the alcoholic Gonzo (Scott Thornton). Life may have been hard and boring in the bush, but town is a noxious environment and things become much worse. Yet their relationship flowers and we are treated to a hopeful if not happy ending. Far from betraying Sampson, Delilah nurtures him.

Sampson is not the talkative sort – in fact he utters but one word in the entire film – but he gets by on body language and an expressive face. Delilah is a more resourceful character and Sampson fills the gap left in her life by Nana's passing. Both Rowan and Marissa inhabit their parts rater than act, which suits Thornton's understated approach. The whites in the film are without exception unsympathetic, even the priest in whose church Delilah seeks refuge who cannot even bring himself to speak with her, despite her obvious distress. The upsetting thing for me is that the portrayal of the white characters is deadly accurate. The only charitable person in the whole film is Gonzo the alcoholic.

Like the Cannes judges I found this a remarkable first film, particularly as it was obviously made very cheaply. Thornton does the scenery justice as well as his characters, but I'm not sure it was necessary to get by with so little dialogue. The inner life of Sampson in particular remains a mystery.

I'm amazed that across the board, Aussie IMDb reviewers are hating this film. The complaint: not realistic, boring. Not a love story.

OK I will agree with the last statement. I saw the preview and it's being marketed as a love story...which in a sense is kinda true, one of the most offbeat love stories I've ever seen, though tagging Samson and Delilah as a love story is misleading. This film is much more a work of art, a successful creation of experimental storytelling on film, a harsh portrayal of Aborigine life, and ultimately a dual character piece. The movie is not about making a wholly realistic story of teenage Aborigines. If you have a problem with films with no dialog, this will be boring and please head to the next Hollywood blockbuster. And be warned, this is a very sad story of poverty, drug abuse, and disconnection.

I applaud the director, Warwick Thornton, who seems to be very well grounded in cinematography and documentary work in delivering us his first full-length fictional feature. Pacing was suburb, amazing shots of the Australian outback as well as executing brilliant close-ups of characters with the urban backgrounds towards the second part of the film. Very impressed by the actors as well, and how it was really their facial expressions and actions throughout the film that carried the narrative, and how we have two extremely introverted character studies and how in each characters' hardship, even though "Delilah" was much more the introvert and extremely stubborn, both their lives mirror each other and they do fall back on each other for support, even if Samson ultimately was the most dependent as he continually turns to "huffing" as his main help with his struggles.

And I should also return to the point of lack of dialog and the narrative being carried on through action. There was something very primal, very human about the way the film unfolds...reminding me a lot of physical anthropologists studying the social behavior of primates...of which all of us humans are also primates. And I mean no disrespect to anyone in their beliefs or as an insult at Aborigines. I believe the director was playing on one of the most ancient human societies on Earth, as the best tool to convey a "world" where human speech is almost nonexistent at the dawn of human evolution, as if going back in time to tell an ancient and minimalist story of heartbreak juxtaposed into the familiar modern Australian backdrop. Pure brilliance...something that rarely a filmmaker can be bold enough to try, let along make work as a film!

So as if this all wasn't part of the quirky charm of the movie, we have an excellent and oddball soundtrack, from Mexican mariachi, to reggae, to alt-country/folk music (this music by the director himself!) that brought this work to further heights.

While Samson and Delilah might be the most tragic stories I've ever seen within film-making's "hash realism", it's also a story of love...of how one person genuinely cares for someone else as their life goes down the toilet, and in the end come a sense of blossoming and hope. Excellent work, you can see how this was very much a labor of love by Thornton. Not the most brilliant work in the world (but I do give it 10 stars), but certainly something really worthy of praise and reception by open minds!