Movie review of the “Rabbit-Proof Fence”
Movie “Rabbit-Proof Fence” by Phillip Noyce was released in 2002. It is a historical drama mixed with adventures based in Australia.
The story takes place in Western Australia, in 1931. Three girls Australian Aborigines mongrel: Molly, Daisy and Grace are victims of inhuman new law on filtering children born from the marriage of white people and indigenous peoples. The law prescribes to isolate these children in special camps, where they will serve as obedient servants for white people. Not wanting to obey the new rules, young but precocious prisoners make a daring escape. No matter what obstacles are, they decided to return home, which is 3000 kilometers away from them. To return to real home where they really can feel comfortable, relaxed and invulnerable.
The main characters of the movie are three sisters: 14-year-old Molly, 8-year-old Daisy and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie. The heroes, especially Molly, provoke enormous involuntary respect. Notwithstanding the stifling heat of the Australian desert or bleeding feet, they strive to live and endeavors to return home, though Gracie didn`t have luck in that because she was caught by the police. The girls show the unity of the family in face of danger and death. They show us the example of great love, sacrifice and recalcitrance against injustice.
Phillip Noyce chose for shooting not professional actors, but the indigenous people of Australia what makes the movie so authentic. Film is made not in the atmosphere of terror and fear, but in an atmosphere of loneliness and self-preservation instinct. The director not only showed such a complicated subject, which carefully and long time was concealed, but also showed the Aboriginal feelings, the feelings of Aboriginal children, showed how they felt about this and what they felt for such a relationship to them of "white" people. The shooting place – the desert – leaves a bitter impression of loneliness of all those who are in need and face the injustice in the modern cruel world, in the world where personal interests are higher than any moral principles and human feelings.
The value of this film is in its almost documentary veracity, which tells the history of the grief of Australian people. The film is largely social, rather than an adventure one. It shows the tragedy of the whole Australian native people cause by unhuman anti-aboriginal law which was abolished only in the 70-ies of the previous century. The topic showed by the director in this film will never lose its relevance. I was extremely shocked with this shameful history of racial discrimination. I got to know that not only Hitler was practicing the theory of the "master race" – but also this shame of mankind was present in such a wonderful country as Australia. And This is awful!
