Quick note...

As an after-note to the original review I did back in July, “Samson and Delilah” has won Camera d’Or at Cannes, and is now on release in some of the US film festivals.

Keep an eye open for it.

A must-see…

Samson and Delilah

This is not the traditional Biblical tale. Samson and Delilah are two Aborigine teenagers, and the film is their story.

The film is funded by a number of Australian organisations, including Central Australia Aborigine Media Association (CAAMA).

To say that I enjoyed this would not be true. It is very definitely not entertainment.

The film opens at dawn in an aborigine village. Samson wakes, cuddles his small tin of petrol, gets out of bed, walks outside and plays (very non-musically) with his brother’s electric guitar, gets hit by his brother… The same scene is repeated perhaps ten or fifteen times. Delilah wakes, takes medicine to her grandmother, feeds her, takes her to the health clinic, sits with her as she paints… The same scene is repeated several times. The repetition is modified slightly, the communal phone rings and no one answers it. The art gallery agent arrives to collect the grandmother’s latest painting, pays her bill of $25 at the store in return. Samson’s brothers wake, start playing drums and guitars; the same tune every day, the same tune endlessly.

As an introduction to the story it could not be bettered. It creates exactly the sense of boredom and hopelessness of life in a very remote Aborigine community. And that, really, is the film. It presents a portrait of Aborigine life, as it really is.

The prevalence and impact of illiteracy, petrol sniffing addiction, teenage pregnancy, rejection by “white” Australian society, unemployment, homelessness, crime – real, cultural, and imaginary – and rejection by the family is all there.

The painting collected by the agent is seen in an art gallery window priced at $22,000.

No, not enjoyable. It is a film that the likes of MK should have as compulsory viewing.

I give it a 9; most of all for not shirking the truth.

Two (minor) cautionary tales...

First comes this story about Facebook, and the next step in their development of the system -

FACEBOOK is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150 million members by creating one of the world's largest market research databases.

In an attempt to finally cash in on the social networking site, once valued at $US15 billion ($23.6 billion), it will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products. Companies will be able to pose questions to specially selected members based on such intimate details as whether they are single or married and even whether they are gay or straight.

The company, which has struggled to make money from advertising, has been demonstrating the benefits of its new instant polling tool to business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Following from that is the latest Aussie panic about Google -

YOUR local phone exchange is down and your landline and mobile are not working. You need to make an urgent business call but you have no way of communicating with the outside world. What do you do?

A similar scenario hit the internet yesterday when Google, the dominant search engine, suffered a malfunction and marked all websites as dangerous, blocking them from use.

Millions of users were unable to access the sites they were looking for, and instead received the warning: "This site may harm your computer".

While the problem lasted only about 40 minutes, experts estimate millions of dollars were lost from online transactions dependent on the company's search functions. Users reported failures on other Google applications such as Gmail, which has 1.3 million accounts with the Department of Education.

"What happened? Very simply, human error," was Google's response. It said its list of sites containing malware - set up to protect users from potentially harmful sites - was wrongly updated and all sites were automatically blocked.

"Unfortunately, the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs," Google's vice-president of search products, Marissa Mayer, wrote on the company's blog.

But the failure of the search engine giant - believed to capture about 70 per cent of its market - raised questions about how widespread the financial impact would be of a longer or permanent failure of Google's products.

"It's critical infrastructure because people have it so interwoven and so ingrained into their existence that they can't live without it," said tech enthusiast Dave Gray from podcastersemporium.com.

"It scares me to think 'What if something would happen to Google today?'. Businesses would go under, massive amounts of money would be lost, core businesses would fail because they base their business models on using Google services.

"You've only got to look at the biggest-selling phone for the last quarter of last year, which was the iPhone. It's integrated with Google. It's got Gmail built into it, it's got Google Maps built into it, it has YouTube, which Google owns," said Gray.

Google's global range extends beyond internet searches on google.com. When the outage occurred yesterday, users reported failures on other Google applications like Gmail - which is now has 1.3 million email accounts with the NSW Department of Education - and iCalendar, used by businesses to organise and manage events for clients. A longer outage could have impacted the archiving of sites, thus rendering organisations dependent on an online presence for profit or profile virtually invisible to the public.

I remain, yours truly,
probligo the luddite

The raruraru about the things you see - 6

As a follow up to that last item on the photograph exhibition... [all links and quotes thanks to SMH]

Photographer Bill Henson and the Sydney gallery which displayed his controversial pictures of naked children last month will not be prosecuted after police accepted there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

Police today said they made the decision following advice from NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery.

Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn said the matter was a "complex area of law'' but police were obliged to launch their investigation after complaints from the public.

She said police had only received three complaints but "we would respond if there was one complaint from the public''.

She later conceded that the level of response might differ if only one complaint was received.

As well as that -

Henson photo not porn, says censor
David Marr
June 6, 2008

IT'S official. The picture of the naked girl that sparked the Bill Henson fuss is not pornography.

The sight of her on an invitation to the photographer's Sydney exhibition two weeks ago provoked shock and outrage, but the Classifications Board has now declared the picture "mild" and safe for many children.

So, was this storm in a teacup territory? Be easy to so say. Seems that there are some who just can not let it go -

Ms Johnston warned her child protection organisation, Bravehearts, would now be lobbying for legislative change. "It's an absolute disgrace," she said. "I think we've become the laughing stock around the globe."

Hmm, I wonder why?

But the politicians were sticking to their guns.

The Premier, Morris Iemma, told the Herald: "The police deserve our thanks for their investigate work. My personal opinion remains clear - these photographs crossed the line and were inappropriate. I can't understand how a parent could allow a child to be photographed in this way." The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, also continued to condemn the work. "I said what my views are as a parent. I don't budge from that. But I'm not about to go around and start dictating to the legal authorities what they should or should not do."

Well, there is nothing better than a bandwagon for a politician to jump on. Three votes in the bag for both Iemma and Rudd. Seems to me that the whole thing was a no-brainer.

Don't like the tv programme? Turn it off. There is the button.

Don't like the art? Don't go look.

Having said all that, and using the Liebowitz Vanity Fair cover as a guide, it is an area of art that does need to be monitored. The outcome in the Sydney instance might have been a no-brainer. The outcome of the three complaints is summed up in that last link -

Viewing is by appointment only.

I wonder why that is?

As a postscript, I think that this image is as pornographic as the Liebowitz -

The raruraru about the things you see - 5

Y'know, this is almost getting to the point of total stupidity.

This series of instances all come out of Sydney, thanks Sydney Morning Herald for the entertainment. And yes, from Sydney, the promised land of moral probity and righteousness; the land that brought (and expelled from society) Norman Lindsay for images such as these -




Firstly, and kinda related to the billboard that was erected (gotta watch my language here :) ) in Auckland comes this Blog stream. No, I didn't read any more than the first couple paras, and the opening .gif was more than enough.

Then over the past couple of days comes a parallel to the Cyrus argument. Again, I have not personally seen these images but the news item (including interviews and vox pop from both sides of the argument) gave a fair idea of the content. Seems that the difference between these and the Cyrus cover(less) image is a matter of being far more explicit and much less "demure". That is all on that.

But the hoo-ha is so great that even the PM gets in on the act -

Photographs of naked 12- and 13-year-olds at a Sydney exhibition shut down by police are revolting and have no artistic merit, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.
...
The show includes large photographic prints of topless children, one of which was included on the opening night invitation.

Mr Rudd today weighed into the debate about the merits of the artworks, saying he thought they were "revolting".

"I find them absolutely revolting," he told the Nine Network.

I am not going to be judgmental here about the images. The SMH poll is interesting though -

Reader Poll

Bill Henson exhibition and images of naked children
Where do you stand?

It is art and acceptable - 35%

It is art but inappropriate - 24%

It is more offensive than artistic - 12%

It should be illegal - 29%


Total Votes: 5608

And yep, one of those votes is mine. I had to think, and voted accordingly in order to get access to the results. SMH is careful to point out that their surveys are not to be considered scientific and represent the views of only those who wanted to respond. That qualification is apt and required.

But I can't help wondering (and perhaps the SMH did too) if there was a connection between Rudd's comments and this little contre-temp.

As political commentary,


that is an excellent piece of art.

Melbourne City Council has defended its decision to reject a controversial painting by the nephew of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The painting depicts a Ronald McDonald holding a flaming Olympic torch, while a monk burns in the background.

Van Thanh Rudd's work, which he this afternoon revealed was intended as a homage to British street artist Banksy, shows Ronald McDonald carrying the Olympic torch past a burning monk.

UPDATE - SUNDAY

Clearing my (non-existent) mail this morning and turned this out from the Yahoo home page

Is it acceptable for nude photos of underage girls to be shown as art?
Thanks for voting 35455 votes since May 22 2008
Yes 18% 6494 votes
No 82% 28961 votes

Interesting contrast, and the same caveats as the SMH poll.

The raruraru about things you see - 3

Prompted by Lucy and her response in the previous post, and because this has gotten me more than just a little irate -

From Monday's Herald comes this little piece.

A 16-year-old New Zealand model has been pictured topless in fashion magazine Russh Australia - prompting a "please explain" call from her agent here.

The Australian magazine is being investigated for pictures featuring Auckland model Zippora Seven and 16-year-old male model Levi Clarke.

One image shows the pair in a bubble bath, with Zippora topless and Levi's eyes closed, as if he has passed out. Four bottles of champagne are visible.

The Australian Classifications Act prohibits the depiction of nudity and sexual activity of minors under 18, and a spokesman for the Australian Classification Board said: "I can advise that the board has contacted the publisher of Russh Australia."

Zippora's Australian agent Priscilla Leighton-Clark yesterday admitted the shoot had gone too far.

"It's wrong that our girl has appeared in our magazine exposing her breasts when she is so young," she told the Sunday Telegraph in Sydney.

However, Russh editor Natalie Shukur defended the shoot, claiming it was a homage to supermodel Kate Moss and her one-time boyfriend, actor Johnny Depp.

So the mag considers Kate Moss to be an appropriate role model for young teen girls?

Zippora's New Zealand agency Red Eleven said it had no involvement with the photo shoot.

Director Mandy Jacobsen told the Herald Red Eleven was "shocked" and "disappointed in the pictures", shot about a month ago.

She said the agency would be talking with Ms Leighton-Clark this week, and wanted an explanation.

There is an unwritten law in New Zealand preventing the use of under-18s in nude photo shoots, Ms Jacobsen said.

"We have to be very careful about these girls on shoots, and what the story's about."

Well, for a start, this stinks to high heaven. Despite the very direct parallels to the Cyrus instance there is one distinction that is very clear. I am prepared to accept that the Cyrus photos taken by Liebowitz were not taken primarily for publication; that they were taken as an add-on and forwarded to the magazine as part of a portfolio by Cyrus.

This instance involves, as clearly, the magazine taking the images with the clear intent of publication.

Today's Herald -

The responses in the public forum make depressing reading, even for an old lech like me.

This one is WRONG. Read that ? WRONG!!!!!

It is patently illegal under Aussie Rules. That should be enough for anyone. For me, the rules would be WRONG if they allowed the publication.

That opinion might seem to differ from my somewhat guarded acceptance of the Cyrus photo. The latter was (my vain hope) taken without the intent of publication. I have not seen the Aussie photos, and I won't be going looking for it any time soon. From the description I would have some "difficulty" putting it into the same category as the Cyrus photo.

There are limits. Cyrus I can accept (if only because the photographer was Liebowitz). This example I can not, irrespective of the name of the hack who took them.

Who remembers the Mohammed cartoons?

From Sydney Morning Herald -

The head of Australia's Islamic Council believes a statue of the Virgin Mary shrouded in a burqa is not offensive, because it shows a key female figure of Islam in the modest fashion required of all Muslim women.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday described as "gratuitously offensive" the statue and another artwork depicting a holographic image of Osama bin Laden that morphed into an image of Jesus Christ.

The artworks were entries into the Blake Prize for religious art.

But Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel said the statue was "not at all offensive", because both the Virgin Mary and Jesus were revered figures in Islam.

"So [Mary wearing a burqa is] no different to how our mothers and sisters are expected to be modest in their dressing," he said.

But Mr Patel said he was affronted by the image of bin Laden's face blending into that of Jesus, who is deemed a prophet in Islam.

"You have a revered prophet of Islam being equated to somebody like Osama bin Laden.

"Also in Islam, we don't have any paintings or drawings depicting any of our prophets, so I find it quite offensive."

The Anglican bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, said he was surprised by offended reactions to the artwork.

"Christians are not about to go and kill people because someone did some cartoons - it's not the way we respond," he said.

He said the artwork comparing Jesus to bin Laden was "somewhat critical" rather than offensive.

"It raises questions about what they have got in common and how they are different - Jesus himself said there will be many false Christs that will arise," he said.

Christians ought to be cautious about "running to the press" to complain about being offended, he said.

"You need to limit the language of outrage to things that are really outrageous," he said.

"[Politicians] should get on with running the country. Even though they are Christian men it's not an area they should be commenting on."

Rod Pattenden, chairman of the Blake Society, which runs the Blake Prize, said controversy over the artworks was a "beat-up".

The competition "reflected on political, religious and contemporary issues" each year and the artworks have never been offensive, the Reverend Pattenden said.

The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said: "As a person of faith and religious background I think it's important to reflect on the icons of our faiths.

"Unfortunately, some contemporary art is tedious and trivial. These couple of works demonstrate this.

"Regrettably, attempts to insult Jesus and Mary have become common in recent years, even predictable.

"Too often it seems that the only quality which makes something art is the adolescent desire to shock.

"If this is the best the Blake Prize can do, it has probably outlived its usefulness."

The Blake Prize was awarded last night to indigenous artist Shirley Purdie for her painting Stations of the Cross.

Strange perhaps that JH is one of those expressing offence. Mebbe something to do with impending elections and Closed Brethren?