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source: Rabbit-Proof Fence

We saw Rabbit Proof Fence this evening and I must say that for me this is absolutely one of the best movies this year so far. The moods in the film are fantastic, not in the least because of the music by Peter Gabriel. I was also very impressed with the acting of the girls. Once again we have been taught a lesson about the way we treat the native people of this world...

I am sorry, this movie is made with every conscious effort to make the audience sympathize and feeeel for the little girls. Yeah, they've got it tough, no kidding! So why treat the audience as if we're stupid? The bad guys - Kenneth Branagh's character in particular - are demonized blatantly and one-sidedly while the girls get very little dialogue but oh so many shots of their angelic terrorized faces. The movie has no depth. It does not delve into exploring the complex issues of racism and colonialism in Australia, instead it is another generic triumph-over-adversity tale which we have seen depicted onscreen 534,466 times before - true story or not. Yes, the cinematography is beautiful, blah blah blah, the story is still utter crap.

100% formulaic modern filmmaking with no vision and no storytelling interest whatsoever. High production values, though, and top-notch camera work and cinematography. This is once again a giant video-clip, relying only on "beautiful" images and a background musical syrup, with a "moving" story which is sadly reduced to an excuse to produce an empty and potentially mass-appealing cinematic hull. Just to be sure, they used the LOTR-Jackson visual approach... ah ah. Any real emotion, any real drama is wiped out, drowned into the linear, clean, comfortable, morphin-like images and sound. "World music" MTV video-clip. Peter Gabriel should be ashamed to join the gang. This over-aesthetic, over-idealized and utterly boring filmmaking seems to be highly appreciated. This comes as no surprise to me. With people fed with TV commercials and fake art, what would you expect? Real drama? Real questions? Really moving stories? Naaaaah. THEY DON'T MAKE ENOUGH SALES: THEY GET PEOPLE UPSET. So feed them SUGAR. The sweeter, the better. Simple, effective, profitable. The public even has a little extra: good conscience for viewing a "humanist" movie. The technical staff is bloody competent, though, some shots are magnificent. I can see some really interesting people were involved. Too bad that more and more competent people get corrupted by those cynical executives.

1931 Australia. The state has passed a law that facilitates the collection of mixed race children to boarding camps where they are trained in their white side of their blood and to be home help as adults. The eventual aim is to prevent the growth of the aborigines as a race by watering down any mixed blood. A small group of children, Molly, Gracie and Daisy are taken from their mother and transferred across the country to one such camp. However Molly leads the trio in an escape from the camp and follow the rabbit proof fence that divides the country to return to her home. I managed to fluke free preview tickets for this because the tickets I had come to collect were all gone! I must admit this film hadn't really appealed to me when I saw summaries and the poster, but I'm very glad that I did. The plot is based on fact and is a period of history that I admit I knew nothing about. I was surprised that this cruel and immoral practice carried on till as late as the seventies. The fact that the current Prime Minister of Australia refuses to apologise for it to this day shows that it is important that this story be told. The film is told in a steady, unsentimental tone that allows the film to be powerful without the typically Hollywood use of sweeping music or other such lazy tools. Instead the circumstances of the story create the emotion. The story is a little weak at some points – once the children escape the film has a touch too many scenes of near-capture and escape to sustain the drama. Also the film (understandably) lends a lot of respect to the Aborigines – giving them a sense of mysticism that they maybe don't deserve. This is a slight problem when a key action involves a hawk that is supposedly summoned by their mothers (or something!). However these are minor complaints given the sweeping emotion of the film and the sheer power of the story. The production and direction are excellent. Noyce has created a beautiful vision of the Australian Outback that really feeds the film. However the sound is also superb. Rhythmic footsteps ring out, crunching and banging of the landscape – it works best in a cinema I guess but it adds to the dramatic feel of the film, even if some sudden noises caused me to jump without any reason in the scene to do so. The cast are mixed but are important where it matters. Sampi is amazing as Molly. She carries the film with her strength but also little facial expressions that reveal that she is a child, reveal her strength and tell so very much. Both Sansbury and Monaghan also do well but not as well as the lead. Branagh is also perfectly pitched. Neville could easily have been overplayed as a hammy villain of the piece but here he is played just right – he is a real man and we are left to decide for ourselves what to make of him. Some of the cast are average – some of the children in the camp can't act and the majority of the white police officers are maybe a shade too much caricatured as evil men who dislike the blacks. Overall this film may struggle to draw the Friday night crowd just looking for a bit of escapism of a weekend, but it is still well worth a look. It is beautifully shot and uses the Australian landscape to great effect complimenting the enormity and emotion of the terrible, terrible true story. Not exactly cheerful or uplifting but a powerful story that deserves 90 minutes of your time.

"Rabbit-Proof Fence" is a serviceable melodrama about the plight of a trio of escapee Aboriginal girls travelling back to their settlement. The film looks great, the story is simple but strong and the performances by the three young girls, and Kenneth Branagh are all very good. The other performances, though, are below standard and they disrupt the emotional force of the film. And, at times, Noyce's unsubtle direction errs towards overstatement, and the writing is occasionally simplistic and one-sided. The issue of `Stolen Children' is a valid one in Australia, but it is an extremely complex one, an aspect that this film fails to convey.

Spoilers herein. What is it about films set in Australia that allows even good filmmakers to think that they can get away with tripe? Here we have at root the familiar story, usually of a wily pet who evades huge odds, great distance and evil captors to return home. In this case we get some pleasant enough children, a slight brush of mysticism in the air and wrapped in a morality play about blind racism. What an interesting film this could have been. Even the juvenile `Walkabout' was better./ Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Enjoy the film for its cinematic qualities, but always remember that this is pure fiction. The events depicted never happened. The clever little historical note at the end is nice touch to make audiences think the events depicted actually happened. The heroine of the film was *not* stolen, but -- as official files reveal -- removed only after fears were raised for her safety and after a nod of approval from her stepfather. The so-called 'Stolen Generations' is an enduring myth of the Australian scene. The facts are that despite enormous efforts not one single stolen Aborigine has been found, let alone a dozen - or generations. However, it's a heart-rending tale that makes for good press and a good screenplay. Even Roger Ebert fell for it. Ebert could pick that a local film masquerading as history - The Gangs of New York - is fictional, but, not being familiar with foreign parts, accepted this one as completely true. Rating: 1 Kleenex.

MILD SPOILER AHEAD: This is the 200th film I have reviewed for IMDb and one of the most satisfying. Phil Noyce has produced here a piece of cinematic poetry when it could have easily been tendentious agit-prop. The story from the 1930s of three half-cast aboriginal girls walking 2000 km of Western Australia to escape the clutches of white assimilationists is seen through their frame of reference. We see the harsh beauty of the countryside as they do, not an alien landscape but as their back yard. They have all been brought up in the desert and together know how to survive, a point eventually realised by their pursuers, who then lie in wait at their destination. The three young girls, Mollie, Grace and Daisy, are stunningly portrayed by Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sainsbury and Laura Monaghan. Molly, at 14 the oldest, has the largest part but the three of them function together as if they really were sisters. Their mother and grandmother , played by Ningali Lawson and Myana Lawson (daughter and mother in real life) are equally convincing, as is David Gulpilil as the relentless black tracker. The most difficult role in the film is that of A O Neville (Mr Devil, as the aborigines called him), Chief Protector of Aborigines, a sincere and energetic advocate of the monstrous policy which resulted in a generation or more of half-cast children being removed from their families. It would be easy to pillory Neville as a monster, but Kenneth Branagh manages to give us a rounded picture of a man who was not inhumane, who tried to advance what he saw as the welfare of his charges despite lack of money and enormous logistical problems (not to mention an unco-operative police force). Had it not been for these obstacles the aboriginality of Australia would probably have been reduced to a few scattered reserves in the deserts run as freak shows for tourists. Some critics of the armchair lefty variety have criticised the movie as not being political enough, and its true there's plenty of room for righteous (or leftist) indignation on the topic of the stolen generation, but I think a more overt political message would have diminished it. Imagine say, if John Pilger had made this film. Instead we have a near-classic. Never I have I seen the visual power of the Australian landscape better depicted, and seldom have I seen a better celebration of the human spirit. And this is a true story. The real Molly and Daisy take their bows at the end. Things didn't quite work out for them the way they might have, but they survived and stayed with their people.