In the Back Row
with Allison McKinley © 2003
Film: Rabbit-Proof Fence
(Australian Film Commission,
Miramax/Buena Vista International,
distributors)
Allison's review in ten words or less:
"A must-see film for all--nine points out of ten"
Golden Globe-nominated score by Peter Gabriel
Film release (US): 15 November 2002
Original Budget: $6,000,000
Earned: $76,000,000 in four months of US release only, Jan- April 2003
DVD release: 19 August 2003
Special DVD Features:
Documentary: Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence
Commentary
Rabbit-Proof Fence, recently released on DVD, is one of the best films in recent years. Since its original release in February 2002, it has earned the Audience Favourite Feature Award at the Aspen Film Festival, won the Australian Film Institute's award for Best Film, Best Original Score (Peter Gabriel) and Best Sound, won the Audience Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival, Film Critics Circle of Australia for Best Director, and on and on.
Since the film won so many awards in the Best Director category, let us take a look at Rabbit-Proof Fence's director, Phillip Noyce.
Born in 1950, in Griffith, New South Wales, Australia, Phillip Noyce grew up with a passion for story-telling. He began his career with a series of short films while still a teenager, then graduated to directing documentary films for Film Australia in Sydney.
In the 1980s, he directed Heatwave and Echoes of Paradise (aka Shadows of the Peacock), and then two TV miniseries that were co-produced by fellow Aussie George Miller.
It was his work with Miller that led Noyce to Hollywood, where he directed a film that would bring him great critical acclaim in the United States, Dead Calm (1989), starring Nicole Kidman (born in the United States, raised in Australia) and Sam Neill (born in Ireland, raised in New Zealand). His American career was poised for take off.
He scored heavily as a director with his next two Tom Clancy novel adaptation movies (in which the lead was played by Harrison Ford) Patriot Games (1992), and Clear and Present Danger (1994).
Now, before we can take the next step forward in Phillip Noyce's career, let us take a quick look back, to two films that foreshadow Rabbit-Proof Fence. In 1978, he gained critical acclaim and commercial success for Newsfront, a salute to the movie newsreel industry that won Australian awards for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay. This was one of his best films and one in which he learned the technical skills that would be required for "Rabbit". But it was in 1977 that he shot the film that probably had more influence on Rabbit-Proof Fence than any other in his career, Backroads, a sort of outback Easy Rider, a film depicting Australia's deep-seated racism against the aborigine people.
In the year 2000, he was knocking on doors in New York, trying to convince a rather recalcitrant Harrison Ford that the next in the Tom Clancy series was a step he should take; that it was a good career move, a film that needed to be made. We should thank Harrison Ford for playing the Hollywood prima donna. Phillip Noyce, fed up with movie-making in America, said "Screw this!" and settled into the project that would change the direction of his career forever. Thus began the making of Rabbit-Proof Fence.
~*~*~*~*~
In 1886, to cope with the "problem of the aborigines", the Australian government established the Aborigines Protection Board which provided, in part, that: Resident Magistrates may apprentice any 'aboriginal' or 'half-caste' child of a suitable age. Aboriginals may be prohibited from entering or remaining in towns. That law remained in force until 1970.
Buoyed with self-righteous religious zeal and armed with the Darwinian theories of "survival of the fittest" and "natural selection", white settlers systematically displaced and enslaved an estimated 300,000 to one million aboriginal people.
Under this "protection programme", thousands of children, known as the "stolen generation", were taken from their families and placed in "retraining centres" where they would gain the necessary skills to become domestic servants for white people, never to write or see home again, never again to speak in their native tongue.
Our story begins in 1931 when Molly Graig, 14, and her cousins Gracie, 11, and Daisy, 8, are taken by a law officer from their mothers at the Aboriginal camp at Jigalong, and carried by car and train 2000 kilometres to the Moore River Native Settlement. Here, the girls were to live with other "half-castes" and were to be "trained" in the social and practical skills required of domestic servants. Molly saw how the sisters treated the other young girls and decided to get away. After only a short stay, she and her cousins fled the school and began a nine-week journey back to Jigalong, following the Rabbit-Proof Fence. Little Gracie is captured along the way and returned to Moore River, but Molly and Daisy eventually found their way home.
The screenplay for Rabbit-Proof Fence was based upon the book written by Doris Pilkington, Molly Craig's daughter, who in turn had been taken from her mother and trained at Moore River. Much has been said to dispute the veracity of this film, and many have claimed that there was no "stolen generation" in Australia. These people have pointed out that "half-caste" children were treated poorly by their own tribes, that they lived in deplorable conditions, and that young half-caste girls required protection from sexual exploitation, especially from whites.
No one disputes the fact that this journey did in fact take place, that three little girls set out to travel on foot 2000 kilometres in torturous conditions to return home, and I think that fact speaks loudest to end any debate. There was nothing charming enough at the retraining centre at Moore River to entice them to stay, and nothing had happened to them in Jigalong in their own tribe that had been so horrible that it prevented them from wanting to go home.
One cannot watch this film and then not want to see how it was made, and the accompanying documentary on the DVD, "Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence" does not disappoint. Excellent acting by Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, and Laura Monaghan, three acting neophytes, and excellent direction by Phillip Noyce, make Rabbit-Proof Fence a film that most will treasure for a generation.
~Allison McKinley~
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