Rabbit-Proof Fence
Review by Hans Sherrer
For Justice Denied Magazine
April 10, 2003
Starring
Everlyn Sampi as Molly Craig;
Tianna Sansbury as Daisy Craig; Laura Monaghan as Gracie; David Gulpilil as Moodoo;
Kenneth Branagh as A.O. Neville
Directed by Phillip Noyce
Screenplay by Christine Olsen
Produced by Phillip Noyce, Christine
Olsen and John Winter
Music by Peter Gabriel
Released in the U.S. by
Miramax in November 2002. To be released on video and DVD in the Summer of
2003.
Rated PG, 94 Minutes
Based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris
Pilkington (1996)
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a movie phenomena.
It was shown as a first run feature in major cities such as Seattle for months,
even though it is a low budget Australian film with no major stars, no special
effects, no foul language or sex scenes, no explosions and no mega ad campaign.
Audiences flocked to see the movie when the simplicity of the true story it
tells can be summarized in twenty words: In 1931 Australia three young girls forcibly
taken from their families escaped and endured many hardships trying to elude
capture. What is captivating about Rabbit-Proof
Fence is the hard to believe details of the girl’s story.
In 1905 the
Australian government passed legislation authorizing the forcible removal of children
with a Caucasian father and an Aboriginal mother from their Aboriginal families
and their confinement in a Native re-education center. Known as half-castes,
the children were taught rudimentary English and the manners necessary for them
to fit into Caucasian society. The children were also taught how to perform
menial jobs. Boys were trained to do manual labor and girls were taught to be a
domestic servant. It was calculated that after a couple of generations of
breeding with only Caucasians, the Aboriginal genes of female half-castes would
be diluted to the point that their offspring would appear to be Caucasian. The national
goal of the removal policy was to maintain two distinctly identifiable ethnic
groups. Areas from which all half-castes had been removed were described as
“cleaned up.” [1]
Under the
legislation the Chief Protector of the Aborigines was entrusted with the power
of being judge, jury and executioner by deciding which children would be forever
taken from their home. Their summary decisions were not subject to judicial
approval or review. From 1915 to 1940 career bureaucrat A.O. Neville held that
position in Western Australia. Neville knew nothing about Aboriginal life, and
he shared the blatantly racist attitude of a predecessor, James Isdell, who compared
the taking of Aboriginal children from their families to the separation of a
pup from its mother. His open contempt for Aborigines and comparison of them to
dogs was reflected in official correspondence in which he wrote, “All
Aboriginal women are prostitutes at heart,” and all Aborigines are “dirty,
filthy, immoral.” [2]
Those attitudes were the norm among the people assigned by the Australian
government to act as the Aborigine’s Chief Protector.
The three
girls whose story is told in Rabbit-Proof
Fence were half-castes living in the Jigalong settlement in the Northern
part of Western Australia’s outback. In 1931 Chief Protector Neville signed an
order for the institutionalization of sisters Molly and Daisy Craig and their cousin
Gracie at the Moore River Native Settlement north of Perth. The Australian
police duly snatched the screaming girls as they tried to run away, and they
were stuffed in the police car in front of their frantic mothers and other
relatives who could do nothing but wail uncontrollably and beat the ground, knowing
from experience they would never see the children again. Molly was 14, Daisy
was 8 and Gracie was 10.
Fifteen
hundred miles from Jigalong, Moore River was a de facto prison populated by innocent
children whose only offense was being born with a skin color unacceptable to
Australia’s Caucasian population. The children’s jailers considered them to be
the equivalent of dogs, and that is how they were treated. The conditions at
the Moore River “prison” were abominable. Misbehaving children/inmates could be
flogged and kept in solitary confinement for weeks in a windowless iron shed known
as the “boob.” The food was broth and bread, and
1/7th as much money was spent on the children/prisoners
at Moore River as on the upkeep of prisoners in Western Australian jails. In
1934, three years after the events
portrayed in the movie, a Royal Commissioner described the conditions at Moore
River as “woeful.” [3]
The children
at Moore River were expected to spiritually die under the guidance of their warders:
they were stripped of their family heritage and roots, their native language,
their customs, their home and way of life. In other words, they were deprived
of everything unique to them as Aborigines and expected to become second class citizens
to Caucasian Australians.
The prison was
guarded by the invisible wall of being in a remote location a vast distance
from the home of the child prisoners, and a crack Aboriginal tracker
methodically hunted down any child who dared to escape. Shortly after arriving
at Moore River the three girls watched a girl that had tried to escape put in
the “boog” after she was herded back by the tracker. Soon after that Molly led
the girls on a gutsy escape in broad daylight while everyone else was at a
Sunday church service. Molly knew the risks, but she was too heart-sick for her
family and home to stay at Moore River.
The Rabbit-Proof Fence then becomes a
fantastic tale of survival and escape. The girls were faced with a 1,500 mile
trek on foot – more than half the distance from Los Angeles to New York - across
inhospitable terrain to return home. At the same time they were battling fatigue,
the elements, and scrounging for food and water, they used their wits to elude
capture by the Australian police and the relentless tracker. As their run for
freedom stretched from weeks to months, the efforts of A. O. Neville and the
Australian government to capture them became ever more frantic.
Molly and Daisy escaping along Western Australia’s rabbit-proof fence
As straightforward
as its plot is, Rabbit-Proof Fence
defies simple categorization because it can be viewed in so many different ways.
It is an intense human drama, it is an inspiring tale of raw grit and ingenuity
in the face of overwhelming adversity, it is a passionate story of the love
shared by family members, it portrays the casualness with which people will treat
others inhumanly, and it warns of the danger of empowering bureaucrats to indiscriminately
designate people to be treated as criminals.
Amazingly, the
Australian government continued kidnapping half-castes from their homes until
1970. After that many Australians were so ashamed of having done nothing to
stop thousands of innocent children from being torn from their families that
they denied it ever happened. Rabbit-Proof
Fence obliterates that delusion.
Based on a
book written by Molly’s daughter, Doris Pilkington, Rabbit-Proof Fence is an example that even with a mostly unknown
cast and small budget, a powerful story well told can mesmerize an audience. I
saw the movie in a packed theater and there were stretches of many minutes when
you could have heard a pin drop.
Molly and her
sister Daisy, who are now in their 80’s, appear briefly at the end of the movie.
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a testament to their
incredible fortitude as children, and their unintentional defiance of the
Australian government’s unforgivable and unconscionable mistreatment of thousands
innocent children.
Rated PG, Rabbit-Proof Fence is a movie experience
that is unlikely to be disappointing, whether someone is 10 or 80, and whether
it is seen in a theater or when released for home viewing.
THE END