Rabbit- Proof Fence: Cheat Sheet Movie News. We revisit the film that renewed community interest in the Stolen Generations. Explore the story of this vital film.

Why It’s Important. Rabbit- Proof Fence was warmly received by both audiences and critics upon its release in 2.

Grossing over $1. AFI Award for Best Film – and positive reviews. On The Movie Show, David Stratton described it as a “bold and timely film about the stolen generations.”The film tells the true story of three Aboriginal girls (as recorded in Doris Pilkington’s Follow the Rabbit- proof Fence)  – Molly Craig, her sister Daisy, and her cousin Gracie (played by Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury and Laura Monaghan in the film) – who are taken from their family in 1. Moore River Native Settlement.

• Rabbit-Proof Fence was warmly received by both audiences and critics upon its release in 2002. Grossing over $16 million at the international box office, the film.
• Producer John Winter (Rabbit-Proof Fence) makes his directorial debut with this unconventional film-within-a-film about a sex worker (played by eight different.
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Their abduction is justified by “Chief Protector of Aborigines” A. O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh) as a solution to “the problem of half- caste” – children with Aboriginal and white heritage. The girls escape from Moore River and make the arduous – and long, stretching over nine weeks – journey home to Jigalong and their families, all along following the titular rabbit- proof fence.

Margaret Pomeranz, while describing Rabbit- Proof Fence as a “very good film”, noted that it “look[ed] at the children, rather than ever getting to know them.” Matthew Dillon’s Metro review makes a similar observation, noting that “we’re a little detached from the main characters”. This approach is somewhat explained by the film’s political agenda. As Larissa Behrendt notes (in her book on the film), “this is the film that took the story of the stolen generations to the world.” Australia had only abandoned its relocation program some three decades earlier, and despite the release of the Bringing them home report, the government at the time – led by John Howard – evinced no interest in apologising to Australia’s indigenous population. Rabbit- Proof Fence’s importance, then, is as much political as artistic.

The three girls are representatives of the real women they play, but they also symbolise the thousands upon thousands of children cruelly removed from their homes. Release in a time when the Stolen Generations were a contentious issue, the film proved controversial; conservative commentators accused it of misrepresenting the facts. Andrew Bolt sneered at what he regarded as “untruths and exaggerations” and “Aboriginal leaders who falsely claim they were “stolen””. Des Moore and Peter Howson – who was Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the early 1.

The most astonishing words in "Rabbit-Proof Fence" come right at the end, printed on the screen as a historical footnote. The policies depicted in the movie were.

Neville acted responsibly.” Such naysayers found themselves on the wrong side of history in wake of Kevin Rudd’s 2. Rabbit- Proof Fence – whose fictionalised elements are all drawn from the accounts of other members of the stolen generations – undeniably played a role in shifting the national conversation around the stolen generations. What It’s Really About.

Benign Neglect. The distance created between the audience and Molly, Daisy and Gracie betrays Rabbit- Proof Fence’s intention to reflect upon the ways in which Australia’s white population failed its native peoples. Mid- way through the film, the three girls encounter a fence worker (Ken Radley) who tells them they’re actually on the No. It’s a useful piece of advice, but scant assistance for three young children alone in the outback. As with the farmer’s wife (Edwina Bishop) who provides the girls with food and clothing, people are prepared to help – but only to the point where it doesn’t inconvenience them. Behrendt ponders the decision to include these scenes: “What is the film telling us? Is it a sign of benign neglect on the part of white Australians? Does it reflect the ambivalence of an ‘at least we are doing something’ attitude, even if that something is ineffective?

Or is the film showing us that although some white Australians in the 1. Aboriginal families being torn apart, they too felt powerless in the fact of the Act and the power of the authorities?”Rabbit- Proof Fence never provides a definitive answer to these questions, though given how long indigenous children continued to be removed from their families – up until the early 1. But this is only one perspective on the historical treatment of Aboriginal Australians by white Australians; just as the fence worker identifies there are “three fences,” Rabbit- Proof Fence offers three distinct perspectives on how Australia failed – and continues to fail – the First Australians. Misguided ‘Benevolence’The film’s most intriguing figure is undoubtedly A. O. Neville. He’s the architect for the removal of the girls from Jigalong – along with countless others – but despite the racist undertones and deleterious ramifications of his actions, he’s presented not as a malevolent villain but rather a misguided ideologue.

He says things like “In spite of himself, the native must be helped.” He believes his actions are necessary to preserve Aboriginal culture, not to destroy it, even as the children imprisoned at Moore River are punished for talking in their native language. The rabbit- proof fence is a versatile symbol throughout.

For example, when the girls first encounter it on their trek to Jigalong, they embrace it passionately and we cut to a shot of their mother (Ningali Lawford), holding the fence herself, hundreds of kilometres way. Here it represents their bond to the land. But in large part the fence represents the futility and inadvertent cruelty of Neville’s policies. It is a symbol of division, a deep wound through the centre of the country. It’s also an irredeemable failure; intended to keep rabbits to the east of Australia, it proved entirely useless (there ended up being more rabbits on the west of the fence). The gulf between Neville’s intent and the effects of the Act is manifest in the film’s final act, when the girls encounter a ruined section of the fence – a fractured chasm representing the failure of ‘civilisation.’Australian director Phillip Noyce – coming off a string of Hollywood hits and with the assistance of cinematographer Christopher Doyle and composer Peter Gabriel (of Genesis fame) – wields an impressionistic aesthetic throughout, creating a spiritual and intuitive atmosphere. In particular, the way the camera regards Neville suggests the film’s derision of his philosophies; he is introduced with a bevy of intimidating low shots and dizzying Dutch angles, but by the film’s final frames we peer at him from above.

He is now rendered small, ridiculous …but not defeated.

In Western Australia, 1. Jigalong sits on the edge of the Gibson Desert. Watch Winter Of Frozen Dreams Download Full. Running through Jigalong and out into the desert is a rabbit- proof fence that bisects Australia from north to south. The fence was built to keep rabbits on one side and pasture on the other. This remote country is home to three spirited Aboriginal girls, Molly, her sister Daisy, and their cousin Gracie. The girls' white fathers are fence workers who have moved on.

Now their only contact with white Australia is the weekly ration day at Jigalong Depot. In Perth, AO Neville, the area's Chief Protector of Aborigines, receives word that the three girls are running wild. He believes the Aboriginal race is dying out and believes that the answer to the "colored problem" is to breed out the Aboriginal race. To achieve this he has ruled that children of mixed marriages cannot marry full- blooded Aborigines.

Settlements are set up across the state and "half- caste" children are removed from their families and prepared for their "new life in white society" as domestic servants and laborers. Neville orders the removal of Molly, Gracie, and Daisy and they are relocated 1,2. The harsh conditions they must live under shock Molly, and she convinces Daisy and Gracie to run away with her.

With Moodoo, a cruel and master tracker on their tails, they begin a grueling three- month journey home, following the rabbit- proof fence that will guide them back to their mother and their rightful home.