It Didn't Stop The Bunnies Either... (Rabbit Proof Fence (DVD))

Member Name: rachels_ratty

Product:	Rabbit Proof Fence (DVD)
Date:	04/04/04 (308 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent screenplay, Fabulous cast, Soundtrack

Disadvantages: A Tad too sanitised

Molly, Daisy and Gracie are half-caste Aboriginal children growing up on the Jigalong Settlement in Western Australia with their families and according to traditional ways. They hunt their food in the bush, retain their language, their rituals and values. Their fathers? were white men who worked along the rabbit-proof fence and they have no contact with them. The situation works well for all ? or so you would think.

However this is 1931 and the Australian Government had introduced a policy to remove all half-caste children from their homes, their families and their lives and transport them to re-settlement centres. Why? So they could either enter domestic service for the Whites? or marry Whites? and therefore breed out the ?Native? in them. The Government thought that having a growing population that was neither Black nor White would destabilise the Country and the ?problem? had to be dealt with swiftly once and for all. Mr A. O. Neville has the strange (given the circumstances) of Protector of Aborigines for WA. He?s the person who decides where the indigenous populace may travel to, whom they may marry and where they may work. He is also in charge of carrying out Government orders when it comes to the removal of half-caste children from their Mothers.

In truly harrowing scenes we are shown the three girls removal from Jigalong by Constable Riggs, Molly quite literally being dragged kicking and screaming from her Mother?s arms and transported over one thousand miles to the Moore River Settlement near Perth. It is not just the removal, the heartbreak, the way it is enforced; the girls are taken to a whole New World for them. Jigalong is in Australia?s dusty interior; the Moore River Settlement is by a river, the world is green, everything is strange. In short, they are petrified. The Settlement isn?t everything promised either. Comprising of nothing more than a group of wooden shacks the children are locked into so called dormitories each night, s
leep on camp style beds and the toilet is nothing more than a metal bucket. The food provided is nothing like the fair they are used to eating and looks revolting, they are forbidden from using their native tongue, church is compulsory; life is run by the ringing of the Settlement bell.

Naturally the girls are homesick, want their Mamma?s. Molly, the very image of petulant teenager, decides enough is enough, they are going home! Now remember I said they were transported over one thousand miles and are now in what is to them a foreign land? Well there is one familiar thing for them if they can find it ? the rabbit proof fence, which runs directly north to south and from coast to coast. Molly knows it runs straight past their Jigalong Settlement so if located would quite literally lead them straight home. What happens next is basically a walk that entered the girls into the record books and took nine weeks, but to say anymore here would be spoiling things!

The film is based on a true story as written down by Doris Pilkington Garimara who is the daughter Gracie. She painstakingly recorded the details as told to her by her mother/aunts, a fact that was made difficult by the fact that the Aboriginal people do not record/remember detail such as time in a way we do. An Aborigine would remember time in respect to rites, rituals, when the rains came, when emu chicks displayed certain plumage etc. She was also, of course dealing with very old memories. Don?t forget this all happened in 1931 and she was trying to record it for the history books, for posterity in the 1990?s. This is the one fact that makes watching the film pretty harrowing. As a pure fictional drama it would work of course, but the fact that everything you are seeing is true, did happen and continued happening until the early 1970?s ? the children removed during those intervening forty years are known now as the Stolen Generations. This fact is the main reason I wanted to watch this film (and
I have also read the book) ? the last time I visited Adelaide I was privileged to see a travelling exhibition of paintings by a renowned Aboriginal Artist depicting this very topic. That has to be one of the most emotion-evoking displays I have ever seen and made me determined to discover more about these ?lost? children.

Director Phillip Noyce in my opinion performed a near perfect celluloid miracle whilst transferring the story from the spoken/written word and onto film. He cast three completely unknown children with no acting experience between them for the roles of the respective children. A gamble maybe and one that he was forced into as there are so few Aboriginal actors/actresses, but it works. The situations the three girls had to ?act? were as alien to them as they were to the real Molly, Daisy and Gracie and so their reactions were completely true to life. They didn?t really have to do an awful lot of acting, which is why the whole thing is so believable. There is nothing worse than watching a film based on true life that does not work, that leaves you cold, that makes you wonder if you are heartless because you don?t cry when you are supposed to! Because the girls? reactions and acting is so good you cannot help but be moved, be swept along by the story as it unfolds, be willing them to make it, to achieve the impossible.

Of course the girls couldn?t possibly achieve the telling of the story on their own and a fine cast supports them. Kenneth Branagh is perfect as A. O Neville, a typical Colonial upstart and seemingly devoid of emotion who simply doesn?t understand why the Indigenous population of Western Australia are so against what the Government is doing for them. ?Don?t they know what?s good for them?? is one very memorable quote that shows the prevailing attitude of the immigrant White population but the best one to demonstrate feelings at the time ? ?We have to save them from themselves?. You see, although ?appearing? emotionle
ss I believe Mr Neville really did care about the Aborigines, just not in the way you would care for another human being. They were seen more as animals than human beings and he wanted to tend to their needs much in the same way you would look after a pet cat.

David Gulpilil who plays Moodoo the Aboriginal tracker employed by the Moore River Settlement to locate runaways is the only other actor I knew before watching the film. His character is another that provoked a fairly strong emotional response as I watched the film. He was, in short, using his heritage, his skills against his own people and that smacked to me of just being plain unfair, of being completely out-of-synch with how things should have been. The sad truth of the matter is a historical one. When the Whites arrived and began displacing the Indigenous Population they had to move, had to adapt to a completely new way of life. Some chose to continue their nomadic existence wherever possible, some chose to live alongside the Whites to gain the so-called ?best of both worlds? and others chose to work for the New People. Let?s face it, the Aborigines possessed innate skills that the Whites? desperately needed in order to survive in what to them was a very hostile Country. Under the context of the story and with what the girls? were trying to achieve it just appeared that Moodoo had ?sold-out?, almost like he had sold his soul to the Devil.

The cinematography is perfect for the film. The locations chosen all show perfectly the changing landscape as the girls moved further and further North and whilst all shots are shown with the focus being on the children they show exactly what they were dealing with, the extreme harshness and unforgiving nature of the Australian Interior. There are also some lovely moments of contrast as the film switches between the girls? journey and Mr Neville?s dark and stuffy offices in Perth. A bigger difference in the world?s the Whites? and Indigenous Peoples in
habited couldn?t be greater and the way the film switches between the two is a very effective and simple way of getting the point across. The Soundtrack that accompanies the film is also in good keeping with the enfolding story. A mix of works by Peter Gabriel and haunting Aboriginal sounds evoke the ideal atmosphere.

For all that I did have one or two small niggles with the movie although I think they stemmed from the fact that I read the book before I sat and watched the film. The odd inaccuracy from book to film crept in as I guess is inevitable when something makes the leap from book to the large or small screen. Sheets were seen on the girls beds at Moore River whilst Doris goes to great pains in the book (and several times as I recall) to point out the starkness of the accommodation the children were housed in. Sheets were for special occasions only! Not something I would have even thought about had I not read the book first but at times I am a stickler for accuracy.

My main concern was that in translation the story, the journey, call it what you will has been to an extent ?sanitised?. The girls walked for nine weeks, they used their Aboriginal skills to kill wild animals to survive as well as visiting homesteads to beg for food. Apart from one small scene where the girls are seen removing bird?s eggs from a nest and eating the contents you could be forgiven for wondering how they survived. The sad fact is that for the main part, the film was being made for the White Australian public and it had to be made that way in order for the majority to go and watch it. The girls had to be appealing enough for the Whites? to take them to heart, to sympathise, to understand what they went through. Am I the only person who finds that fact alone as sad as what happened to the Aboriginal population in the first place? Have things really changed that much?

The Stolen Generations are NOT something that should ever be forgotten and I praise Phillip
Noyce for having the guts to bring it to life in such a thought-provoking manner.

Directed ? Phillip Noyce
Molly ? Evelyn Sampi
Daisy ? Tianna Sansbury
Gracie ? Laura Monaghan
Moodoo (tracker) ? David Gulpilil
Constable Riggs ? Jason Clarke
A O. Neville ? Kenneth Branagh

Run time ? 94 minutes
Rated - PG

Summary: