film
23 Nov 2009
Will Samson And Delilah Work In French?
It has won a stack of awards, but can a film about being young and Indigenous in Australia work for audiences on the other side of the world? Sam Davies in Paris thinks so
Most Parisians might not share Stephane Jacob's appreciation for Australian shiraz, Vegemite, and John Williamson's music, but a growing number are starting to like his taste in art.Twice a week, Jacob, an art collector, merchant and all-round Australiana-phile, invites friends and strangers to his apartment in a stately residential area in northwest Paris to explain, admire and sell Aboriginal art.
Last Tuesday, Jacob entertained an audience of nine well-heeled guests over hors d'oeuvres and Yellowtail shiraz. With the help of a fading map, he pointed out the Barossa, the Hunter Valley and Margaret River. "You can get great wines from these areas," he explained. Formalities out of the way, he moved on to the art.
Most in the room confessed to being relative novices in Aboriginal art — with a year's experience at most — yet were taken aback by the diversity and beauty of the works Jacob showed.
"What I love about Aboriginal art is that there is not a taste — it's a representation of the environment, the space," he explained. "Like a Michelin map, they describe a geographical location." Rotating a canvas, he demonstrated how the painting looked different depending on the perspective. "What was at first hot, and passionate, is now restrained and calm."
In a few days' time, a very different work of art from Indigenous Australia will shed a light of its own, potentially changing French perceptions about Aboriginal life.
Warwick Thornton's Samson and Delilah opens in cinemas across France on Wednesday after a successful run in Australian cinemas and six Inside Film Awards. The gritty story of two Aboriginal youths in central Australia has not had the blitzkrieg marketing campaign that was mobilised to promote Baz Luhrmann's Australia last year. But then again it hasn't needed to: the film won the 2009 Camera d'Or prize at Cannes for the Best First Film which assured it of a general release here and possibly an audience as well.
While the film was a near-unanimous hit with the cinephiles at Cannes, opinions vary on how it will be received by the general French public. Its depiction of the neglect, abuse and poverty in Aboriginal communities stands at odds with the general perception of Australia as a paradise of rugby, surfing and kangaroos.
In France, little is known about Aborigines outside of their increasing popularity as artists. In February, TV station France 2's program An Eye on the Planet, briefly highlighted the plight of Western Australian Aborigines in its hour-long dissection of Australia. And the release in August of the French translation of The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper's account of Cameron Doomadgee's death on Palm Island, attracted little attention. But based on the audience reaction at a recent preview screening, it's unlikely Samson and Delilah will escape notice.
The film was part of the Cinema des Antipodes in St Tropez, a free annual event celebrating New Zealand and Australian film held in October. One person in that audience, professional translator Charlotte Rastello, told me the impact was powerful. "The film showed at 5pm, so it was mainly retirees in the room. Most were there just because it was a free film, perhaps also attracted by its religious title. They were shocked. Most would have had no idea about what Australia was like. Some didn't even realise the film depicted a modern-day reality, thinking it was set 30 years ago. They said, 'If that's what Australia is like, I'm never going'."
Isabelle Audinot, another professional translator who wrote the French subtitles for Samson and Delilah and also for Ten Canoes, added that many French people have only a rudimentary understanding of Aboriginal culture. "Aborigines are the guys who sit in the nude and play the didgeridoo. Some French don't even know that they live in Australia. People even think they are called Arb-origines!"
As a result, according to Rastello, "This film might not change perceptions about Aborigines — it will give a perception."
In Audinot's opinion, the film was a hit in Cannes because of its universal theme of exclusion. "Some of the scenes could take place anywhere. It's about power in society." Furthermore, she said it stood out for its contemporary portrayal of Aborigines, far from the romanticised myths proffered by other recent Australian films, such as Australia. "Samson and Delilah was great because it showed Aborigines in the supermarket, like everybody else."
Audinot, a self-described pessimist, said that if the film raised awareness about the situation in certain Aboriginal communities, then that was an achievement in itself. "Very few films effect change on a grand scale," she said. A recent exception was the 2006 French film Indigènes, about African soldiers who fought for France in World War II, only to be denied the pensions due to them as soldiers. After seeing the film, then president, Jacques Chirac, agreed to honour the value of pensions owed to 80,000 non-French soldiers.
On the other hand, Rastello said French audiences might find the film hard to relate to. "The French have always been in our country; it was us who colonised other nations. The history of Australia is so different from France. It's like watching a film about the Inuits in Greenland. We don't identify that it's our community. It's not our problem."
At another preview screening in late October, Samson and Delilah's director Warwick Thornton showed the film to an invited audience at the Pantheon cinema in Paris's chic 5th arrondissement. At the end there was silence — then applause.
Asked what message he hoped to convey to the French audiences he said, "I made this film for my own community. It's amazing to be here in France talking about this."
But in his opinion, at least, the film does have a relevance wider than its immediate context. "This film gave information to people, a view that has not been possible in 10 years of reports on the 5 o'clock news. My message that French people can take away is that maybe on the street you'll see someone that could be Samson or Delilah, and you'll give them a helping hand."
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Your title should read ‘in France’. There is very little dialogue to translate though some of the sign language is sub-titled. Gonzo’s songs might be a challenge.
It’s a great film.
Kevin Rennie
http://cinematakes.blogspot.com/
Thanks Kevin - the French are notorious for dubbing; Gonzo’s song might present their greatest challenge yet!
If you’re interested in more European perspectives on the film, this is the blog of an Italian cinephile living in France. She is absolutely fanatical about film, and this one gave her good reason to be!
http://leblogdezazie.blogspot.com/2009/11/australian-400-blows.html
Regards, Sam
Thanks Sam.
Kevin Rennie
http://cinematakes.blogspot.com/
I’d imagine many French people could get something out of this film. However, it would be somewhat like Australian audiences watching a French film about Moroccans or Algerians living in Marseille. The audience could learn a few things but wouldn’t be able to relate to everything.
I’d add that although I’m Australian, I can’t really relate to what’s depicted in Samson and Delilah because I’m not a impoverished indigenous Australian living in the country. But that won’t stop me watching the movie.
Audiences might like to watch films they don’t relate to. Maybe they can broaden their horizons for a change.
Hi David,
There is a secondary problem of distribution that could hinder the number of bums on seats that actually get to see it here too. Basically the film has a two-week window to prove its value or else it gets pulled!
I agree with your point about audiences maybe wanting to watch films they can’t relate to. Charlotte Rastello - who I’d interviewed - said she thought the reason so few Australian films made it to France, was that so few covered the ‘big issues’ - being those that are universal enough for a culture to transpose to their own experience. S&D I guess managed this through its themes of exclusion - but also the fact it was a powerful love story told in a very unconventional way.
What S&D has been doing in some cases here is completely shattering many preconceived notions about Australia, ie, not just showing what you’d send on a postcard.
This article could have the following changes and make an important point: ‘France’, ‘Paris’ and ‘French’ replaced by ‘Australia’, ‘Sydney’ and ‘Australians’.
The French might have a better chance of relating to the experiences in this film than White Australia. The French, with their fair share of a history of racism, have at least been spared the propaganda that White Australia’s history isn’t one of genocidal racism.
White Australians will approach this film with a heavy veil.
I watched this film the other night on the ABC. I still can’t figure out who the target audience is, or what the point of it all is, if any.
If there is no particular target or point then fine, it’s just a story about 2 fairly aimless kids who start out way behind the proverbial 8-ball but hopefully escape a liitle and end up with some kind of simple happiness together. A faily universal theme that could apply to many people I guess.
Looking at it that way helps ‘normalise’ indigenous Australians to an extent, but only to make the point that their problems are universal, although maybe they have more of them overall. But it’s not a film to inspire anyone….
The directors comment "that maybe on the street you’ll see someone that could be Samson or Delilah, and you’ll give them a helping hand" is good enough for me.
I’m glad I saw it on telly…was never going to see it otherwise.
Urged by an enthusiastic Aboriginal friend, I saw Samson and Delilah the other night on ABC TV. It is a superb film with excellent Aboriginal actors. It is certainly very confronting. It has universal appeal with profound themes of exclusion, respect, dignity, self-expression, love and hope.
This film can hopefully address nationally and internationally what appalling statistics evidently fail to do because the Aboriginal Genocide and ethnocide continues - the "annual death rate" is 2.4% for Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory as compared to 0.4% (what it should be), 2.5% (for SHEEP in Australian paddocks), 0.9% (impoverished India), 1.0% (non-Arab Africa), 4% (Poles under the Nazis in WW2), and 5% (French Jews under the Nazis and the Nazi collaborator Vichy regime in WW2) (see " Aboriginal Genocide. Racist White Australian Child Abuse & Passive Mass Murder ": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15140/42/ ).
My appalled recurrent thought seeing what happened to the lead actors throughout this film - "they are just kids".
The Intervention and the race-based exclusion of Northern Territory Indigenous Australians from the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act is a blot on Australia and the Australian Labor Party (aka the Apartheid Labor Party) - under race-based laws NT Indigenous Australians are forbidden to see, read, buy, consume, sell, or transport things available to all other Australians; their finances are Government controlled; they can be kicked out of their home, community, and sacred land on the say so of White officials, and all of this without recourse to law.
Hopefully Samson and Delilah will help draw international attention to politically correct racist (PC racist) White Australia and precipitate international Sanctions and Boycotts against Apartheid Australia of the kind that were successfully applied to US-, UK-, Apartheid Australia- and Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid South Africa.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
I saw it on the big screen a while ago.
My overwhelming indecision is whether the ending is intended to show that self-determination is just naive and fanciful. One hears a gunshot, and then a kangaroo being cooked in the open, outside a run-down shack. One care-free moment of deliverance, but how long could that last?
It is a good thing that we are confronted with the brutal reality of life in such outposts. It might make us more generous in supporting initiatives like 50000 jobs for the Aboriginal people. It’s a pity though that not a bit more is made of how progress could be made.
Maybe that is just my utilitarian bent, an engineer all my life.
LKIEL
Margaret and David gave the film 5 stars and agreed that it was the best Australian film ever made I disagree I think it was the best film ever made.
An excellent film very deserving of its awards.
I am sure it would have appeal not only to the French but to most Europeans, even without any translation, as there is very little dialogue. It would be a very thought provoking film to them.