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copyright ©1999-2003
DigsMagazine.com.
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Plot synopsis
Based on a true
story, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the astounding tale of three young
Aboriginal girls, fourteen-year-old Molly, her eight-year-old sister
Daisy, and their ten-year-old cousin Gracie. The three girls are happily
living with their mothers and grandmother in the small village of
Jigalong when one day, officials storm into town and take Molly, Daisy
and Gracie away with them. It's 1931, and it's the official policy of
the Australian government that all "half-caste" (half
Aborigine, half Caucasian) children are to be removed from their
Aboriginal families and placed into orphanages, where they'll be taught
how to act like a white person along with other "useful" skills. In
the eyes of the man in charge of instituting such policies, Mr. Neville,
the government's doing these children a big favor by helping them
integrate into "civilized" Australian society. To the children
and their parents, of course, the arrogance of these white men in power
is just plain cruel. Fifteen hundred miles away from their home, Molly,
Daisy and Gracie refuse to adjust to life at the Moore River orphanage
camp. When Molly spies an opportunity for escape one day, she gathers up
her sister and cousin, and three girls make a run for it. Though the
authorities send both policemen and an Aboriginal tracker on their
trail, Molly's far cleverer and more resourceful than anyone
anticipates. Making their way slowly on foot, following the rabbit-proof
fence (a fence stretching all the way down the center of Australia,
built to keep the rabbits on one side, the farm animals on the other),
Molly, Daisy, and Gracie struggle to find their way back home.
Review
I've
always been the sort of person for whom anger brings forth tears far
more readily than sadness. Movies about people dying of some horrible
disease don't generally make me feel remotely like reaching for a
tissue. But I can't watch a story about injustice without an invisible
rope tightening between my belly and my throat, my eyes filling up as I
swallow the indignation. Sitting through some of the earlier scenes in
Rabbit-Proof Fence, listening to Mr. Neville spout his totally
misguided, righteous garbage and watching the three girls literally torn
away from their screaming families, made me mad enough to draw tears.
The story of the Stolen Generation, as victims of this period in
Australian history are called, is just horrible, horrible, horrible —
and the most horrifying thing of all is when learn at the epilogue of
the film that the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their
families and forcing them into white Australian society continued until
1970. In other words, it all happened not so terribly long ago. The
subject matter of Rabbit-Proof Fence is inherently powerful, but Philip
Noyce's film is well worth watching for many other reasons as well.
Filled with gorgeous views of the Australian outback, the movie is
redolent with potent, evocative images that stick with you long after
the movie's over. But it's the astounding performances of the child
actors that really makes Rabbit-Proof Fence so genuinely moving. There's
none of the usual annoying kid actor cutesy-ness to get in the way of
real emotion, and Evelyn Sampi (Molly) and Tianna Sansbury (Daisy) in
particular are scary good. For a thorough understanding of the
complexities of the Stolen Generation issue, of course, you'll have to
read up on the history, but Rabbit-Proof Fence offers a gripping,
ultimately inspirational story that's sure to hit you in the emotional
gut. —reviewed
by Yee-Fan Sun
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