Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #72: Samson & Delilah (2009).

Imagine life as deep in the sticks as possible. No education, no TV or internet, one car between about twenty people and the nearest supermarket or hospital could be hours away. You even have to cut your hair with a knife instead of scissors. That's how it is for Aboriginal teenagers Samson (Rowan McNamara) and Delilah (Marissa Gibson), who are stuck in a squalid Indigenous campsite in remote Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. She spends her days helping her elderly grandmother (Mitjili Gibson, Marissa's real-life grandmother) with cooking and painting; when he's not breaking into other cars for fuel to sniff, hunting kangaroos or jamming on electric guitar with his mates, he's basically a couch potato. But after meeting, they instantly understand each other even while most of their community dislike them both. They quickly fall in love and now choose to steal the car and take a trip to Alice Springs, in the hopes of finding a better life there. But this proves very challenging, thanks to the language barrier, their mutual introversion and particularly Samson's recalcitrant attitude and near-deafness from all his fuel-sniffing.

What an honest but caring and seductive story of Indigenous adolescent life Samson & Delilah is. Writer, director and even cinematographer Warwick Thornton, with his feature-length debut, proved what was once considered box office poison in Australia - Indigenous cinema - could now be lucrative and acclaimed, as deservedly it grossed over $3 000 000 here and won the Camera d'Or at Cannes before becoming Australia's 2009 entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Thornton's approach is very slow-paced, but thoroughly engaging and resonant because very wisely he uses minimal dialogue and sound to convey how a romantic connection depends equally on what you don't say or hear, and because he wants us to experience all these environments exactly as the protagonists do. Thornton also uses his camera to expose all the layered density of the Outback instead of just focusing on the wildlife like we so often see in such movies, and his condemnation here of the status quo for remote Indigenous Australians is very objectively expressed.

He also gets nice performances from his whole cast. Non-professional performers McNamara and Gibson have unquestionable chemistry and just the right manner for their parts, Mitjili Gibson makes a powerfully feisty community matriarch and as Gonzo, a homeless man they shack up with under a bridge in Alice Springs, Thornton's brother Scott balances light relief and growing frustration with the pair effectively. There are many Aussie movies that overseas audiences could understand, but this is not at all among them. But for all Australians, it is just unmissable. Samson & Delilah is an unflinching but tender and ultimately hopeful tale of love and survival among our land's traditional owners.