Rabbit proof fence is a film that portrays a measured gaze toward a shameful history of the Australians. The film is showing who is wrong or right while portraying the countries awful treatment to its aboriginal population. On the right side are the aborigine families who are torn apart by the government policy which intends to forcefully separate children of mixed race from their communities, and transport them to a settlement camp hundreds of miles away from home. In the settlement camps, the children are restricted from using their native language, and they are introduced to a new religion, customs and culture. Later they are integrated to the general population as farm laborers and domestic workers.
The wrong side involves the Australian government which was involved in a program of legalized kidnapping for more than half a century. Neville is the chief protector and legal guardian of aborigines in Western Australia when racial theories were on the increase throughout the world. He is committed to hastening the aborigines’ disappearance through a law that will forbid marriage between children of mixed marriages and fully blooded aborigines. The understated performance by Mr. Branagh fails to portray Neville’s character as an overtly fiendish monster.
The film tells a story of three young girls who manages to escape from a settlement camp and are determined to trek back home a distance of 1200miles on foot. The story begins in a small town of Jigalog in the northwestern part of Australia and on the Gibson Desert edge. In the aboriginal community, there is a rabbit proof fence which is built to keep away the counters’ rabbit from accessing the pasture land and it runs throughout the Australian length from south to north. The three girls, Molly, Daisy and Gracie flee through the woods while the rest of the girls were in the church. The film follows them through the forest, field and desert for three months on foot, during which they used the rabbit proof fence as their guide. Molly and Daisy’s mother on hearing the news of their daughters’ escape, they hold a vigil which they used to chant and sent communicating signals y tapping on the fence.
The film can be viewed as a brutal suspenseful manhunt where the three girls survive a number of narrow escapes from the people pursuing them. On the contrary, in Mr. Noyce view, the entire journey is composed of enchantment and also the film portrays the beauty of the Australian countryside and above all, the decent common, people who aid the fugitives in their long and tiresome journey. Under the best guidance of molly, the girls are able to find food and water which helps them in their journey home. The film shifts from journey to the frustrated attempts by the pursuers and then back to journey, which brings a feeling of a jaunty game of hide and seek.
In the rabbit proof fence, Noyce shows us the awful but eventually successful journey by the three girls where the girls do not even flinch in the arid Australian wilderness. Noyce trust the story to have the power to move us and portrays the girls’ hardship something that are captivating to everyone watching the movie. The film is straightforward but powerful with searing dramatization of remarkable courage, strength and spirit. It also illuminates the human spirit, and their strongest aspect is the educational value of its subjects.
Critics for the rabbit proof fence are extremely useful as they intended to show whether the main theme of the film is successfully delivered and with the right message. From the film critics, Noyce story is exceptionally well appreciated and proved moving to many of its audience.
Work cited
Kenneth B, (2011), Rabbit-Proof Fence, DVD formats.) 94 mins.
