| RABBIT-PROOF FENCE Rating:  Director: Philip Noyce Producers: Philip Noyce, Christine Olsen Writers: Philip Noyce, Christine Olsen, based on the book by Doris Pilkington Garimara Director of Photography: Christopher Doyle Cast: Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan, David Gulpilil, Kenneth Branagh Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Review by: Warren
Curry
11/27/02
When you stop and think for a moment, it really is amazing to ponder how far civilization has come in just the last century (or perhaps its more incredible to consider how backwards human beings were even in recent history). Little did I know that in the first half of the 20th century, the children of Aboriginal people in Australia were subject to being removed from their families and relocated to government run settlements designed to indoctrinate them into white society. Set in 1931, Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence is a true story about three "half-caste" girls, who escape from one such settlement and embark on an amazing 1200-mile journey to reunite with their family.
Soon after we meet 14-year-old Molly Craig (Everlyn Sampi), her younger sister Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) and their cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan), they are forcibly abducted in front of their mothers and grandmother. The girls', whose fathers are white men and long since gone, racial composition makes them the target of AO Neville (Kenneth Branagh), the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia. Neville has made it his mission to take all mixed race children and raise them to be part of white Australian society, which leads the girls to the Moore River Native Settlement, a place Molly quickly decides will be a very temporary home.
The three girls quite casually make their escape, but here's where the real problems arise. Their destination is impossibly far away, they're not sure how to get there and before long, Neville has dispatched an experienced Aboriginal tracker (David Gulpilil) to hunt the girls down. Molly knows one thing for certain: if the girls can find their way to the rabbit-proof fence (a fence that runs across the continent, constructed to keep the pesky rabbit population in their place), they'll be able to follow it all the way back home.
Hardly an exercise in guilty white liberalism, Rabbit-Proof Fence is much more of an honestly emotional film than a political one. But instead of manipulating your emotions to further champion its ideology, Noyce's movie can be better described as the thinking person's adventure story. Even Neville, ostensibly the film's villain, isn't drawn as a tyrant, but as a person who sincerely believes that he is helping the future generations of Aboriginals. The shortsightedness and wrongdoings of the powers-that-be aren't communicated as the actions of inherently cruel people, but as of those who were simply products of the environment.
Unlike Noyce's somewhat by-the-numbers film The Quiet American (also currently in release), Rabbit-Proof Fence is far more unrestrained. He makes great use of handheld P.O.V. shots to put you right in the midst of the action. Some may complain that parts of the film feel long-winded, but I applaud the way Noyce lets the story breathe and attempts to authenticate both the harrowing and monotonous aspects of the girls' journey. The movie resonates much more deeply because of it, and you leave the film moved instead of emotionally drained.
In their acting debuts, Sampi, Sansbury and Monaghan are very strong in their respective roles. Noyce's camera captures them in a way where they exude great presence through their body language and expressions, and the director wisely chooses not to weigh them down with excessive dialogue. Branagh, thankfully, doesn't act as if every second on screen is the last of his life, and hopefully the word subtlety will become a permanent fixture in his acting vocabulary.
It's great to see Noyce returning to his roots and making films that matter. I have nothing against the Patriot Games or The Bone Collectors of the world, but in this filmmaker's case, I can only hope that his forays into the world of Hollywood blockbusters become the exception and not the rule. And before you take exception to my wish, let me offer one more irrefutable word: Sliver. Regardless, go see Rabbit-Proof Fence to understand my point further.
(A Miramax Films release. Opens in
New York and Los Angeles on November 29. Expands to more cities
at later dates.)
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