RABBIT-PROOF FENCE ------------------
In 1931 Australia Chief Protector of the Aborigines Mr. A. O. Neville (Kenneth Branaugh, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets") believed that in order to prevent a third, unwanted race, half-caste children should be brought into the white world so that their Aboriginal genes could eventually be bred out of them. He would be challenged, though, by three little girls of the Jigalong mob, who fled his Moore River camp and evaded trackers and police for 1200 miles to return home by following a "Rabbit-Proof Fence."
Director Phillip Noyce ("Dead Calm") and his cinematographer Christopher Doyle ("In the Mood for Love") deliver a one-two punch with this and their upcoming collaboration "The Quiet American." This is the smaller of the two, an Australian indie based on the book by Doris Pilkington, daughter of Molly (Everlyn Sampi), the film's fourteen year old heroine. Stories of injustice have been told before, but rarely have they been told with such artistry. This is a film that lingers.
Molly and her younger sister Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) have a warm, loving relationship with their mother Maude (Ningali Lawford) and grandmother (Myarn Lawford). Their cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan) and her mother (Sheryl Carter) are also part of the female-centric family circle, whose missing men are the whites working on a vast rabbit-proof fence which stretches across the entire continent. When Constable Riggs (Jason Clark, "Better Than Sex") gets Neville's orders, he forcibly takes the three young girls, leaving three wailing women in the dust of his tires.
The girls are installed in a Moore River dormitory run by the older Nina (Natasha Wanganeen), who tells them they'll get used to it. But Molly witnesses Neville checking the backs of new arrivals. Nina tells her the fairer are educated as they're cleverer. Molly is rejected. She then sees the return of a young girl who ran away to her boyfriend, brought in by Moodoo (David Gulpilil, "Walkabout"), an Aboriginal tracker whose daughter is also being held at the camp. The girl is put into solitary. 'These people make me sick,' Molly repeats over and over. A distant cloudburst signals convenient cover and she determinedly takes her younger charges into the Outback.
Noyce has wisely established Molly as a hunter earlier, so her chance for survival isn't far fetched. The three children's journey is marked by outwitting Moodoo and being aided by strangers - things aren't so black and white here that all whites are bad people. Even Neville (referred to as Devil by the Aborigines) isn't so much evil as deluded by the colonialist thinking of the time, abhorrent as it is. Ironically, the girls are almost captured when assisted by one like themselves who begs them to stay in danger to protect herself from being raped. Another helpful bit of news from a white man causes Gracie to be recaptured. When Molly and Daisy finally collapse in maternal arms, Molly repeats herself again - 'I lost one.'
Noyce gets amazingly natural performances from his mostly inexperienced cast and a perfectly subdued one from Branaugh. The film's beautifully paced and tinged with Aboriginal mysticism by the combination of Noyce's striking camera work, which contrasts dusk silhouettes with blinding heat, Craig Carter's sound featuring cicadas and didgeridoo, and Peter Gabriel's score. A shot of Molly at the fence is cut with a contrasting shot of her mother holding onto the same fence hundreds of miles away, enriching a bond symbolized by the bird of prey Molly's mother said would protect her.
Noyce doesn't let his audience leave easily. As we meet the real Molly and Daisy in present day, closing titles reveal the continuing injustice and hardships they endured after their triumph. "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is a tribute and celebration of a people who survived despite all attempts to rub them out. It is an incredibly moving piece of work.
A
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