Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
- Genre: drama
- Country: Australia
- Director: Philip Noyce
- Screenplay by: Christine Olsen
- Based on the novel: Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
- Starring: Everlyn Sampi, Kenneth Branaugh, David Gulpilil
- Music by: Peter Gabriel
- Running time: 93 minutes
- Country: Australia
- Languages: Aboriginal, English
- Budget: USD $6 million
- Box Office: USD $16,217,411 (worldwide)
Synopsis:
Rabbit-Proof Fence is the full length feature screen adaptation of the novel, Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, which is based on the true story of the odyssey three young, mixed-race girls go on after being removed from their Aboriginal families by the Australian government and sent to a “native settlement” run by a church mission. There, the mixed-race children are prepared to go to White schools if their skin is deemed light enough. If deemed too dark, they are considered not fit for education, and the girls are trained to be maids, while the boys, to be laborers.
Philip Noyce’s screen adaptation of the novel which personalized this period in Australia’s history, brought worldwide attention to an issue perhaps not so widely known: the Australian government’s practice of removing Aboriginal and mixed race children from their homes and sending them to live with White families, where they received indoctrination in Christianity and in the ways of White culture, a practice which began roughly in 1869 and lasted until 1969, with children still being taken in some places in the 1970’s. These children, known as “The Stolen Generations” (aka “Stolen Children”) were of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.
The film’s story begins in 1936, in a small town/village called Jigalong in remote western Australia. Through the town, runs Rabbit-Proof Fence (now known as State Barrier Fence of Western Australia), which, when it was constructed in 1907, was the longest, unbroken fence in the world (1,139 miles). The purpose of the fence being, of course, to keep rabbit and other vermin away from crops. Fourteen-year old Molly, her eight-year old sister, Daisy and their ten-year old cousin, Gracie, with their mother and grandmother are hunting for iguana. Molly, the eldest child in the small, all female, matriarchal family, skillfully hunts down and kills a large iguana, as Molly’s mother looks on proudly. She has trained her daughter well. Of course, the iguana will be a protein-rich meal for the family. We then see Molly’s mother, her arm around her eldest, point to a large bird soaring in the sky. She tells Molly, in their native tongue: “that is the spirit bird-it will always watch over you.” And then suddenly and explosively, interrupting their simple, but seemingly idyllic life, a local constable ambushes the three girls, corners them and corrals them into his police vehicle. Molly’s mother and grandmother chase the vehicle in futility, and then throw themselves on the dirt road, wailing in
anguish. The grandmother then engages in an Aboriginal form of mea culpa by repeatedly hitting her head with a rock. And then, periodically, during the day and night, Molly’s mother grabs onto the rabbit-proof fence, swaying it back and forth as she chants, almost as if the fence is a symbolic, spiritual bond, in addition to a physical link, of sorts, between her and her daughters. The girls are loaded onto a train and caged, as they ride all night and arrive in the early morning at Moore River Camp (the “native settlement”) where they
are nearly spooked by White nuns wearing all white habits.
The girls are shown their new home, which is a one room cabin with rows of beds, occupied by Aboriginal/mixed race girls ranging from infants to the oldest, who is approximately 15 years of age. As the oldest, she orders the others to make up the beds, prepare for church and “empty the bucket,” which, we learn, is a small pail kept overnight by the door for the girls to use as a toilet. This suggests the cabin door is locked from the outside overnight and there are no facilities inside the room. Of the infants, Molly asks the dorm leader, “Where their mothers?” to which the girl responds sullenly, “Nobody here got no mother.” Our young protagonist then calmly, but firmly claims, “I got
mother.” At breakfast, their first meal in the dining quarters, the girls watch on, somewhat bewildered, as the veteran residents say “Grace.” An Aborigine man, who appears to be a guard, smacks the table with his stick for the three new arrivals to rise during the prayers, and yells at them when he hears them speaking in their native tongue, ordering them to speak English. He says, “none of that wonker here,”(“wonker most likely being an Aboriginal slur, essentially calling their native tongue gibberish
Shortly after breakfast, the boys and girls are gathered together outside for a meeting with the visiting Mr. Neville (Kenneth Branaugh) the “Chief Protector of Aborigines.” He refers to these children as “half castes,” having one parent who is White and one who is Aborigine. He speaks of how “the Aborigine needs to be bred out of them,” and one of his tasks is to promise the lightest complected females to White men for marriage when they come of age. But his task today is a different one. After the children perform the song “The Swanee River” (Florida’s state song) for him, they are called up one at a time for Mr. Neville (the children secretly call him “Mr. Devil”) to check their skin color underneath their clothing. He deems Molly too dark to attend school, and she is sent back to her spot. Suddenly, a commotion is heard. One of the girls had run away to see her boyfriend at the boys camp, and she has been caught and brought back by another of the settlement’s “employees”-an Aboriginal man they aptly call “Tracker.” Molly and the others then witness the nuns cut off the unsuccessful escapee’s hair, and she is given corporal punishment (off-screen) and put into a small wooden shack the children call “the boob.” Through a hole in ”the boob,” Molly espies the shorn girl crying and huddled in the corner.
In spite of the threat of what she could face if she is caught, It doesn’t take long for Molly to decide she, Daisy and Gracie are going to make a run for it, as later that afternoon, she and the younger two stealthily take flight from the camp and head into the Australian outback, embarking on a nine week, 1,200 mile trek on foot back to their home, Jigalong, and their family. During their grueling footslog, the skills Molly had learned from living close to the land, as was the Aborigine way of life, serve her well. Of course, in pursuit of the girls is the equally adept “Tracker,” whom Molly surprisingly outwits more than a few times. Along the way, the girls encounter several Aborigine individuals who help them and some who impede their escape, and likewise for the White people they encounter. Also, several times along the way, when the going gets the roughest, Molly, physically and no doubt, mentally drained, wearily raises her head to the sky and sees what seems to be the same bird her mother had told her (just before the girls’ abrupt and traumatic departure) was the spirit bird that would always guide her.
Comment:
Using a mostly Italian Neo-realist approach (many of the actors, including the three principal girls, are non-professional, there is minimal dialogue and plot, as well as a call for social change) Noyce still managed to make a film that is, by and large, fair and balanced. Branaugh’s portrayal of Mr. Neville, “The Chief Protector,” exudes a modicum of warmth and respect for his “charges” even through his blatantly racist dissertations. At one point, as he is relaying orders to the officers who are pursuing the girls along rabbit-proof fence, he says: “Just because these people use Neolithic tools, it doesn’t mean they have Neolithic minds,” thus making him a not altogether unsympathetic character. And the script’s treatment of the character gives the viewer a sense that, albeit racist, he truly felt what he was doing was helping and even saving the Aborigines. It’s hard to despise someone who sincerely thinks he/she is doing right. In addition, the fact that the filmmaker populates the story with characters of both races who are “good” and “bad” evinces his lack of bias. However, in what may be a “tell” of Noyce’s true feelings on this practice, are scenes of Mr. Neville in his office. Each and every time, Noyce used a dutch tilt when shooting the character in his governmental office as he is plotting a map to pinpoint the girls’ location, writing out marriage orders, or denying an Aborigine applicant a voucher for a pair of shoes (see trailer at 1:48). The dutch tilt, which is often used to convey psychological uneasiness, is also often used to convey the idea of corruption. Since he does it every time Neville is in his office conducting his duties as “Chief Protector,” it can be argued that this is evidence of Noyce’s belief that the practice was, to whatever degree, malevolent.
Another notable instance of his cinematography in this film is his use of slow motion in scenes of the girls wearily dragging themselves through the parched outback, as well as one scene in particular where he shoots the three girls from overhead as they sleep huddled together in the desert. From above, they look like three tiny, motherless birds in a nest, and it is only as the camera zooms in does the viewer realize that it is not a nest of birds, but the three girls sleeping. I found it to be wonderfully aesthetic imagery and an interesting metaphor.
Noyce’s casting of the three non-professional actors as the three principals, especially in the case of Everlyn Sampi as Molly, was brilliant. Her performance is natural and unaffected, yet powerful and wholly believable. And she manages to convey strength and quiet wisdom beyond the character’s years, while still evoking the longing and pain of a motherless child.
Not to be overlooked is Peter Gabriel’s equally brilliant score. Gabriel, since the disbanding of his 1980’s British rock band, Genesis, has been involved in various humanitarian efforts, while making innovations in digital music, focusing on producing and promoting world music, “a musical category encompassing many different styles of music from around the world, including traditional music, quasi-traditional music, and music where more than one cultural tradition intermingle.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_music) Given that, Gabriel was the perfect choice, as he created a score that is a mixture of traditional Aboriginal music and digital music/sounds that is often aptly eerie, sounding more like chanting and prehistoric percussion sounds than music per se. The result is a score that weaves the spiritual with the organic, a perfect punctuation to a film that is raw and minimalistic and a resounding call for social change in the tradition of Italian Neorealism (one might think of Antonio and his solitary quest in De Sica’s Bicycle Thief) while at its core, is as allegorical and existentially-transformative as the iconic French New Wave film, Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon.
Kudos to Mr. Noyce for making a film that is so enlightening, so capable of inspiring self-reflection in such a thoroughly engaging, emotionally riveting and humanistic way and giving the world the true story of a little girl who accomplished what few could through the power of maternal love, human bonding and a belief in her own physical and mental strength- something not often seen in movies.
Beyond the Obvious by Catherine M. Espinosa 