Gutsy Girls (Rabbit Proof Fence (DVD))

Member Name: MALU

Product:	Rabbit Proof Fence (DVD)
Date:	02/02/09 (314 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: touching (real life) story

Disadvantages: unrealistic in parts

(film only review)

By chance I watched two Australian films in one week, first Australia and then Rabbit-Proof Fence (RPF). What a difference! It's Big v. Small, a budget of 130 mill. $, 70 actors, a runtime of 165 minutes (Australia) v. 6 mill. $, 15 actors and a runtime of 94 minutes (RPF). Yet, the two films have something in common and that is the topic of the Stolen Generations, the darkest chapter in Australian history. It's only one topic among others in Australia whereas it is the sole one in RPF.

About 10,000 mixed-race children of Aboriginal descent "were removed from their families by the Australian and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969, although, in some places, children were still being taken in the 1970s". (Wikipedia) The idea was not to create a third race between white and black but to maintain white racial purity by permitting white admixtures to mixed-race people and to thus eventually eradicate all native characteristics by the fifth or sixth generation.

The film is based on the novel Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) by Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter of Molly Craig, a woman who, in 1931, was snatched away from her family when she was 14 years old, together with her 8-year-old sister and 10-year-old cousin in Jigalong, a settlement at the rabbit-proof fence which was constructed to keep rabbits and other agricultural pests out of Western Australian pastoral areas.

They were taken to the Moore River Native Settlement, where mixed-race children were kept until they were 16 years old. The boys were then employed as farmhands, the girls as maids (and as we see in the film, also occasionally as sex slaves). The three girls escape and walk 1,500 miles through the Outback, mainly following the fence. They're pursued by an Aboriginal tracker and a white policeman but outwit them; only two girls actually arrive home, though.

Some background information is given in writing on the screen at the beginning and end of the film. I could elaborate on the topic, but this is not an essay on the stolen generations as such but a film review, this means I must look at what the film makes of the story and at the actors' performance. The only famous name is Kenneth Branagh, who plays Mr Neville, the aboriginal affairs guardian. With his straight parting, his thin lips and his serious expression he's the epitome of the conscientious and reliable civil servant. He does his duty and he suffers because the people concerned don't understand that what he does is good for them. He's a living oxymoron, a good-natured racist, he honestly believes that the Aborigines must be saved 'in spite of themselves'. Branagh is perfect in this role.

The tracker is played by David Gulpilil, an Aboriginal actor who's always called whenever an Aborigine is needed in a film. The Australian I watched the film with told me to pay attention, in RPF Gulpilil speaks one sentence which is sensational because usually he doesn't open his mouth, he just 'is'. Halfway through the film he moves one corner of his mouth which can be interpreted as a crooked smile, with this he leaves it to our imagination if he doesn't find any tracks of the girls or if he pretends not to after they've indeed outwitted him and the white policeman for some weeks and he wants them to reach home.

The girls playing Molly (Everlyn Sampi), her sister Daisy (Tianna Sansbury ) and their cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan ) seem not to act at all. Everlyn Sampi stands out as she is the oldest girl and mastermind of the escape so-to-speak. She's also the strongest, of course, and has to care for the others encouraging and cajoling them into not giving up. The two younger girls just stumble along.

I've read some reviews on the film in order to find out if I'm the only spectator with a complaint concerning the girls, obviously I am. The girls slouch along through the Outback (the film was shot in the Gibson desert) for nine weeks, can you imagine what they looked like when they finally arrived home? Filthy, of course! The film girls, however, have clean faces from beginning to end, the real girls' hair must have looked like birds' nests, the film girls' hair is combed. Their trainers aren't torn, their skin isn't bruised, only once do we see the youngest girl's leg with some red stripes meant to look like blood.

What did they eat, what did they drink? In one scene they take eggs out of a nest, in another they squeeze a plant and then suck the liquid out of it. This is not enough! Isn't it the task of the cinema to visualise things? If I want to use my imagination, I read a book, when I watch a film, I want to *see* things. As there isn't much action in the film and the outcome is clear from the beginning, Director Noyce could have concentrated more on this aspect. This would have made the film more realistic and also more interesting, I assume that not many spectators, not even Australian ones, have first-hand knowledge of survival in the Outback. The landscape is overwhelming in its barrenness and hostility against human life, the director could have made more of it. This costs the film 1 ½ stars.

One reviewer has problems with the director being a white man, I think, however, that he has to be in order to get the message across, i.e., white Australians realise what happened to the children of the Stolen Generations. I've read that Noyce is best known as a director of 'slick mainstream thrillers' and that his name guaranteed a worldwide audience.

One review mentions 'the ferocity of the response' to the film and that many Australians 'are unused to being presented with the often unpleasant facts of their colonial history - least of all when the same facts are going to be shown abroad'. A small film with a big impact!

The film was shot in 2002, six more years had to pass until a Prime Minister was willing to apologise. PM Kevin Rudd did it on 13th February, 2008.

Summary: Three girls walk 1,500 miles through the Australian Outback.