2003-03-02

The MPAA has rated Rabbit-Proof Fence PG, �for emotional thematic material.� This is an understatement. Of all the films I have seen in the past six months, Rabbit-Proof Fence has been the most affecting.

In the 1800s, some British settlers had the bright idea of introducing rabbits to the Australian environment. The 24 original rabbits rapidly turned into thousands, as rabbits are wont to do. The literal fence referred to in the movie title was a fence erected by the Australian government in the early part of the 20th century in an attempt to contain these rabbits. The metaphorical fence is meant to contain something, or someone, else altogether.

As a result of all this fence-building, the white construction workers who were dispatched to the outback came into contact with the aboriginal people who had been living in Australia for thousands of years prior to the British newcomers. Many of these white men had sex with Aboriginal women, and as a result, many mixed-race children were born. Eventually, most of the white men left, and their children stayed with their mothers, living a traditional Aboriginal lifestyle.

From 1910 to 1970, however, the Australian government had different plans for these so-called �half-caste� children. Between 1910 and 1970, the government�s department for the �protection� of Aborigines forcibly removed an estimated 100,000 children from their Aboriginal families and put them in institutions where they were trained as domestic servants or farm labourers for white people.

"I would not hesitate to separate any half-caste from its aboriginal mother, no matter how frantic momentary grief might be at the time," wrote one "protector". "They soon forget their offspring," He maintained it was just like removing a pup from a bitch. [from an interview with director Phillip Noyce]

The story of Rabbit-Proof Fence, then, is a true story, which makes it all the more horrifying. It is the story of three little Aboriginal girls�Molly (Everlyn Sampi), her sister Daisy (Tianna Sansbury), and their cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan)--who are torn from their family, in a scene that is so clear-eyed and unsentimental that it is all the more heart-rending. The girls are taken over a thousand miles away to Southern Australia, where they are deposited in one of these institutions, where they are forbidden to speak their native language (�Stop that jibber-jabber!�) and are taught that they have no mothers. The new children are inspected by A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), the chief of the department, and if they are deemed light-skinned, they are sent to live among whites, in the hopes that their blackness, their Aboriginal blood, will be �bred out� of them.

Yes, it�s hard to believe that any of this is true. Unfortunately, however, I do not have as much difficulty believing it, because I am Canadian, and it is part of my country�s shameful history that for approximately the same time period that Australia was carrying out these horrible crimes, the Canadian government was doing the exact same thing to our aboriginal people. Here, these institutions were called residential schools, and First Nations children were, as in Australia, ripped away from their families and taken far away to have the �nativeness� trained (and usually beaten) out of them. They were forbidden to speak their native language, physically, mentally, and sexually abused, and trained to become domestic workers for white people. Incidentally, I have read that these Canadian residential schools were used as inspiration for South Africa�s system of apartheid.

Some of the children in the Moore School, where the girls end up, try to escape. They are almost always brought back by the �tracker,� Moodoo (David Gulpilil), an aboriginal man who works for the government because it is his only way of being near his daughter, who is one of the inmates of the school. The sight of an aboriginal person being forced to perpetuate the oppression of his own people is absolutely horrible. Any child who is caught by Moodoo is punished and beaten severely.

Despite the threat of punishment, however, Molly decides that she cannot stay in the Moore School any longer. She leads her sister and cousin out of the camp and through the wilderness, attempting to get them all safely back home. At fourteen, she is the oldest and the toughest, with a sharp mind and steely determination. The girls walk for nine weeks and travel close to one thousand miles. Remember that this is a true story, and think about how incredible this is. Think about the fact that the youngest girl, Daisy, is only eight years old, and the story is more incredible still. The girls are chased by government officials and by Moodoo, but thanks to their will, their intelligence, the occasional kindness of strangers, and sometimes sheer luck, they manage to evade their captors time and time again.

The actors are all excellent, particularly the three children playing Molly, Gracie, and Daisy. All three had no training prior to the film, and all three are amazing at conveying emotion with the barest of words and gestures. Everlyn Sampi, who plays Molly, in particular is very good, as she has the most difficult role. David Gulpilil, who plays the tracker Moodoo, was in the strange but beautiful film Walkabout as a teenager, and his performance is quiet but powerful.

The film is based on the novel by Molly Craig�s daughter, Doris Pilkington, and directed by Philip Noyce, who is best-known for his adaptations of Tom Clancy�s Jack Ryan novels, Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games. Both Christine Olsen�s screenplay and Noyce�s direction are sharp and spare, but this minimalism is well-suited to the film, as is Peter Gabriel�s soundtrack of traditional aboriginal music. The cinematography by Christopher Doyle is beautiful, showing us the vast, dangerous beauty of Australia�s desert and outback, and making us really feel that we are watching three children walk all that distance. I literally had to remind myself halfway through the film that I was watching actors, not three real children walking that distance; that is how good the film is.

I won�t give anything away, but at the end of the film we are treated to a surprise appearance and a postscript that will tear at even the hardest of hearts. Don�t miss this film�it is something that everyone should experience, if only to remind us of the immense cruelty that humans are capable of imposing on each other, and also of the ability of the human spirit to triumph in spite of it.

Posted by polarcanuck at 4:24 p.m.

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