[Film Review] Samson & Delilah

Writer/Director Warwick Thornton is from the Katej people of Central Australia and grew up in Alice Springs. His passion is to document his people’s stories and share them on a big screen. He makes movies about his community, for his community. While Thornton’s short-films have received numerous accolades from international film festivals, ‘Samson & Delilah’ is his debut feature-length film.

‘Samson & Delilah’ follows a straight narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end - or three acts. The first shots of the film are centred on an adolescent Aboriginal boy, Samson (played by first-time actor Rowan McNamara), as he wakes up in his makeshift single-mattress bed. The blazing Central Australian sun is streaming into his room, and his radio, tuned to an Indigenous country music station, is bursting with song praising the beautiful new day. Samson adorns himself in a radiant yellow checked shirt, sweeps his sun-bleached matted hair from his face, and reaches for his morning mug. These images are all quite delightful, so when we then see Samson engulf his entire mouth and nose in the mug, and inhale deeply, the depressing reality shatters this illusion. Inside the mug is not freshly brewed coffee, as one may have thought, but greasy, grotty petroleum. This opening montage sets the tone for the film, and informs the audience that there will be no rose-coloured glasses approach.

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'Samson & Delilah' will be released nationally in April/May 2009

[My First Film Festival Review] Yay!

After getting my first article on film published a few weeks ago, I had been pondering what to follow it up with. My lovely mother, who teaches social welfare, suggested I attend a little community cinema night being held at a youth centre in a nearby inner-city suburb. It was to be a screening of short-films made by local Aboriginal youth. This seemed perfect to me, as I love films which 'act as a mirror to society'. Anyway, the night was a really positive event for the community, so I decided to write an article on it.

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Whilst writing it, I realised that there have been a number of international films made recently that have embraced a similar grass-roots type ethos of movies 'for the people, by the people'. Michel Gondry's Be Kind, Rewind - with it's DIY community movie-making idea - is the embodiment of this ethos. And The Kite Runner, Slumdog Millionaire, The Class, and Gran Torino are all recent major films off the top of my head that have used mainly non-actors or first-time actors in their casts. I reckon this can only be a positive thing, not only for the communities who are enriched by the film-making process, but also for the appreciation of cinema in general.