The Vegemite of Aussie cinema

You go in to a movie with high expectations when any of the following happens:

-The Weekend Australian Review calls it `one of the finest films made in this country’
-said film is currently sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes
-pillars of movie criticism Margaret and David BOTH give a film five stars
-Empire Magazine says it is `beautifully made and acted'

When all four of the above occurs, you go in to a movie expecting brilliance. Walking out of Samson & Delilah, I'm not sure brilliance is what I got. Instead I felt like I had been privileged to see a piece of Australian history immortalised in this incredible film. As a white Australian of middle-class origins, Samson & Delilah certainly doesn't document my life experiences and it won't for majority of viewers. However, for thousands of Aboriginal Australians the difficult subject-material is less a movie dramatisation and more a reality.
Essentially a love story between two ostracised teenagers from a remote community in central Australia, Samson & Delilah examines the many issues facing Aboriginals in contemporary Australian society. In a word I would describe it as unflinching. You can forget the stolen generation – the filmmakers did. Instead Aboriginal director Warwick Thornton explores the effects of decades of neglecting our indigenous people and how many struggle to find a place within modern `white Australia'. For a nearly dialogue-free film it’s astounding how many issues Thornton and co. manage to cover. Domestic violence, substance abuse, illiteracy, gang rape, racism and artistic exploitation are just a few of the unsettling yet pressing subjects covered in what is no doubt one of the best Aussie films ever made. Unlike some independent films, Thornton doesn’t lose the many messages of Samson & Delilah in his beautiful and artistic camera work. Consciously repetitive at times, Thornton is a master at making the audience feel the tragedy of the two protagonists. This skill was most recently recognised yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival where he won the Camera d’Or first film prize. Samson & Delilah is essentially the Vegemite of Australian cinema; intriguing and unusual at first, it’s black and has a bitter taste to it. Once the discomfort has faded, you find yourself attracted to its distinctly original, however harsh, flavour. Like Vegemite, Samson & Delilah will too become iconically Australian.