Rabbit-Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, 2001) wr. Christine Olsen, based on book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, dp Christopher Doyle; Everlyn Sampi, Kenneth Branagh, David Gulpilil, Tianna Sainsbury, Ningali Lawford, Laura Monaghan, Deborah Mailman, Jason Clarke, Myarn Lawford, Roy Billing, Anthony Hayes (Reg), Garry McDonald, David Ngoombujarra (kangaroo hunter); Molly Kelly and Daisy Kadibil appear briefly at the end; based on true story about Aboriginal children escaping custody in the 1930s; shot in SA (partly in WA: the scenery without people), but set in WA; Best Film, Best Sound, Best Original Score AFI Awards 7 November 2002: Peter Gabriel; 94 min.
This is the Stolen Generations film we had to have: it's an emotional experience.
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a weaving made of strands of several different kinds. There are the imported threads: the Fence, the maps, and the strange notion that skin colour is significant; and the traditional strands: the Dreaming, with its spiritual trails and spirit guides, the songs, and the secular trails left behind by passing humans. The film weaves all this together in a rich texture; but if it is possible to make a weaving, it is also possible to take it apart, or at least track the trails of meaning through its warp and weft.
David Stratton:
After 15 years of making superior Hollywood fare, Phillip Noyce has returned to Australia with this bold and timely film about the stolen generations. It's an amazing, true story – and, when we see the real Molly and Daisy, now elderly women, at the end of the film, it's a truly magical moment. The children are wonderful, and Christopher Doyle's deliberately grainy cinematography vividly evokes the vastness of this formidable continent. Kenneth Branagh doesn't make Neville a monster; this pasty-faced, stitched-up bureaucrat genuinely believes he's doing the best thing for the children, and Branagh's portrayal of a smug racist is all the more chilling for that. David Gulpilil is wonderful as the tracker who comes to admire the children he's pursuing. David Stratton, SBS.
Garry Gillard | New: 19 November, 2012 | Now: 26 January, 2023