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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2002
'Rabbit-Proof Fence'
This Australian film directed by Philip Noyce is set in
Western Australia, 1931. Three young mixed-race Aborigine girls, Molly, Gracie
and Daisy, (Everlyn Sampi, Laura Monaghan, Tianna Sansbury) are taken away by
force from their people, the Jigalong mob, and transported 1,200 miles to a
government camp at Moore River. Mr. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), Chief Protector
of Aborigines, has legal powers to remove "half-caste" children from
their Aborigine families. The children are selected by skin color: lighter ones will
be sent to regular schools; darker ones, like these three, will remain at the
camp, where their language and culture will be suppressed as they are trained in
the ways of white Australian capitalist society, and prepared for a future as
domestic servants. Molly, aged 14, is determined to escape, taking her younger
sister and cousin with her. To reach home, they must trek across an immense
expanse of outback, following the rabbit-proof fence that stretches right across
Australia. Neville is convinced that he is helping the girls by
bringing them into the modern world, whether they like it or not. He believes
that their Aboriginal traits can be "bred out" in three generations,
so that they will be absorbed into white society, culturally and genetically.
The idea that they should have a say in their own lives never enters his
thinking. The Aborigines, who resist this social engineering, call him "Mr.
Devil." This is a real-life escape story, told in a film of sparse
dialog and vast open landscapes. At the end, the real Molly and Daisy appear,
and we learn that they did succeed in keeping their identity and culture. The
policy under which they were taken away continued until 1970. The children who
were taken away are known as the "lost generation." --Richard Bunting |
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