Rabbit-Proof Fence

This is a very powerful film from the wonderful Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American) and its based on the shameful history in Australia where aborigine children were taken by force from their families and tribes to camps and taught to be servants. In the film 3 sisters escape and venture to walk 1,500 miles back to their tribe. The title refers to a fenceline that stretches for thousands of miles and the girls follow it. The wonderful aborigine actor David Gulpilil (Walkabout) plays a scout that is tracking the girls and Kenneth Branaugh plays an officer that is in charge of the whole operation. I guess the main flaw in the film would be the middle where most of the walking takes place and the film really slows down but its not a major complaint. The 1,500 mile trek is expertly paced and the film is by no means dull. Rather, its fascinating! The real footage that we see at the end of the film is so powerful that the whole essence of what you have just watched becomes even more devastating. This is more than just an important film, its a documentation of an ugly and shameful part of Australian history. A must see!

This film has quite a few remarkable features. First of all is its title which is rather unusual and immediately grabs one's interest. Next there is the fence itself which runs for thousands of miles to protect what few green plants there are in these desert regions from the voracious appetites of millions of wild rabbits. This fence plays an important role in this true story. Then there is the diector who not only scoured the continent to find three suitable aboriginal girls to play theleads but moulded these inexperienced beginners into the believable characters of Molly, Daisy and Gracie. The director Phillip Noyce has achieved remarkable success in creating three good little performers and should be given full credit for his difficult task.

For those who do not know the desert regions of Australia, it must be said that the "outback" country is harsh and cruel and can only be crossed by those with experience...those with a knowledge of the land. I think the camera makes it clear that the hostile environment is very much like a fence in itself...almost impossible to cross. All the more remarkable therefore that these girls accomplished what they set out to do. May be it was a reckless decision they made but thanks to the fence they found their way back to family and friends.

The film is largely a record of the long trek and the manner in which the children are able to survive. There are not many dramatic moments on their journey south. The children are mainly concerned with avoiding the blacktracker who is following them. The most unforgettable scene comes early in the film when the children are forcibly torn from their mothers. This is truly heart-wrenching stuff.

This thoughtful presentation is worth watching. It is part of Australian history.

"And miles to go before I sleep/ And miles to go before I sleep" -- Robert Frost

Set in Western Australia in 1931, Rabbit-Proof Fence, a new film by Australian director Philip Noyce (The Quiet American, Clear and Present Danger), is a scathing attack on the Australian government's "eugenics" policy toward Aboriginal half-castes. Continuing policies begun by the British, the white government in Australia for six decades forcibly removed all half-caste Aborigines from their families "for their own good" and sent them to government camps where they were raised as servants, converted to Christianity, and eventually assimilated into white society.

Based on the 1996 book, "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence" by Doris Pilkington Garimara (Molly Kelly's daughter), the film tells the story of three Aboriginal girls, 14-year old Molly Kelley, her 8-year old sister Daisy, and their 10-year old cousin Gracie. It shows their escape from confinement in a government camp for half-castes and their return home across the vast and lonely Australian Outback. It is a simple story of indomitable courage, told with honest emotion. Abducted by police in 1931 from their families at Jigalong, an Aboriginal settlement on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert in northwest Australia, the three girls are sent to the Moore River Native Settlement near Perth. Here the children must endure wretched conditions. Herded into mass dormitories, they are not allowed to speak their native language, are subject to strict discipline, and, if they break the rules, are put into solitary confinement for 14 days.

Followed by the Aborigine tracker, Moodoo (a great performance from David Gulpilil), the girls make their escape. Using a "rabbit-proof fence" as a navigation tool, they walk 1500 miles across the parched Outback to return to Jigalong. The rabbit-proof fence was a strip of barbed-wire netting that cut across half of the continent and was designed to protect farmer's crops by keeping the rabbits away. The girls walked for months on end often without food or drink, not always sure of the direction they are going, using all their ingenuity and intelligence along the way just to survive. The stunning Australian landscape is magnificently photographed by Christopher Doyle, and a haunting score by Peter Gabriel translates natural sounds of birds, animals, wind and rain into music that adds a mystical feeling to the journey.

The performances by amateur actors Evelyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, and Laura Monaghan (who had never seen a film before let alone acted in one) are authentic and heartbreakingly affecting. Though the white officials and police are characterized as smug and unfeeling, they are more like bureaucrats carrying out official policies than true villains. Kenneth Branagh gives a strong but restrained performance as Mr. Neville, the minister in charge of half-castes. Rabbit-Proof Fence is an honest film that avoids sentimentality and lets the courage and natural wisdom of the girls shine through. This is one of the best films I've seen this year and has struck a responsive chord in Australia and all over the world. Hopefully, it will become a vehicle for reconciliation, so that the shame of the "Stolen Generation" can at last be held to account.

Official policy between 1910 and 1970 in Australia allowed half-caste Aborigine children to be forcibly removed from their families and incarcerated ‘for their own' good in training schools where their were educated to become fitting servants for white families. This institutionalised eugenics, still recent enough to be remembered by its victims, is still a controversial issue in Australia where the PM John Howard refuses to give an official apology. The film has been doing very well in Australia. The story follows three such girls who are forcibly re-located but escape, and follow the ‘rabbit-proof fence' on a 1500 mile journey back home. The title itself seems to echo not only the yellow brick road of the Wizard of Oz (another journey to reclaim one's wholeness) but the fence that was erected to contain animals – which is just how the Aborigine children are treated, albeit with the best intentions. The story was adapted from a book by the daughter of the youngest surviving half-cast Aborigine portrayed in the film – the actual child actors had mostly never seen a motion picture before let alone acted in one.

1931 Australia. The state has passed a law that facilitates the collection of mixed race children to boarding camps where they are trained in their white side of their blood and to be home help as adults. The eventual aim is to prevent the growth of the aborigines as a race by watering down any mixed blood. A small group of children, Molly, Gracie and Daisy are taken from their mother and transferred across the country to one such camp. However Molly leads the trio in an escape from the camp and follow the rabbit proof fence that divides the country to return to her home.

I managed to fluke free preview tickets for this because the tickets I had come to collect were all gone! I must admit this film hadn't really appealed to me when I saw summaries and the poster, but I'm very glad that I did. The plot is based on fact and is a period of history that I admit I knew nothing about. I was surprised that this cruel and immoral practice carried on till as late as the seventies. The fact that the current Prime Minister of Australia refuses to apologise for it to this day shows that it is important that this story be told.

The film is told in a steady, unsentimental tone that allows the film to be powerful without the typically Hollywood use of sweeping music or other such lazy tools. Instead the circumstances of the story create the emotion. The story is a little weak at some points – once the children escape the film has a touch too many scenes of near-capture and escape to sustain the drama. Also the film (understandably) lends a lot of respect to the Aborigines – giving them a sense of mysticism that they maybe don't deserve. This is a slight problem when a key action involves a hawk that is supposedly summoned by their mothers (or something!). However these are minor complaints given the sweeping emotion of the film and the sheer power of the story.

The production and direction are excellent. Noyce has created a beautiful vision of the Australian Outback that really feeds the film. However the sound is also superb. Rhythmic footsteps ring out, crunching and banging of the landscape – it works best in a cinema I guess but it adds to the dramatic feel of the film, even if some sudden noises caused me to jump without any reason in the scene to do so.

The cast are mixed but are important where it matters. Sampi is amazing as Molly. She carries the film with her strength but also little facial expressions that reveal that she is a child, reveal her strength and tell so very much. Both Sansbury and Monaghan also do well but not as well as the lead. Branagh is also perfectly pitched. Neville could easily have been overplayed as a hammy villain of the piece but here he is played just right – he is a real man and we are left to decide for ourselves what to make of him. Some of the cast are average – some of the children in the camp can't act and the majority of the white police officers are maybe a shade too much caricatured as evil men who dislike the blacks.

Overall this film may struggle to draw the Friday night crowd just looking for a bit of escapism of a weekend, but it is still well worth a look. It is beautifully shot and uses the Australian landscape to great effect complimenting the enormity and emotion of the terrible, terrible true story. Not exactly cheerful or uplifting but a powerful story that deserves 90 minutes of your time.