The first time I went to Australia, I was walking along Sydney Harbor and I saw a couple of Aboriginal street performers dancing and singing in their native language. A group of onlookers, including myself, watched the show shooting videos and taking pictures and it occurred to me just how sad their story was. In a nutshell, here were the original Australians who lived here for over 40,000 years reduced to performing for the people who took everything from them for loose change. Their history eerily mirrors that of the Native Americans whose land was taken from them, their culture and way of life stripped away, and very nearly wiped off the face of the map. In fact, it is the history of nearly every indigenous population that has faced foreign invaders.
One of the primary themes in the history of "conquered people" is the difficulty in assimilating into mainstream society. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, we are given a first hand look at a sad chapter in Australia's history in its racial policies between 1869 to 1969. To Aborigines, this era is known as the Stolen Generations, a term used to describe the forcible removal of "half-caste" (of Aboriginal and white decent) children from their families. A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh) is the official "protector" of Australia's Aborigines and he single handedly has the power to decide which children get taken away, who can marry whom, and controls the general affairs of the Aboriginal people. Regarding these half-caste children, his ultimate goal is to breed the Aborigine out of them until their descendants are indistinguishable from whites. "If only they knew what we are trying to do for them," he laments.
In a traumatic scene, three young half-caste girls, sisters Molly and Daisy and their cousin Gracie are taken away from their mothers by orders of Neville. They are transported over 1,500 miles away from their homes in Jigalong and taken to a camp at Moore River to the south. This camp is an orphanage for half-castes whose goal is to assimilate the kids into Australian society in menial jobs such as maids or servants. Nobody can run away as they are invariably caught by an Aboriginal tracker Moodoo in a thankless job catching his own kind. These runaways are put in solitary confinement as punishment and as an example to others who might try to escape. Nevertheless, the three girls decide to run away from the camp and walk the 1,500 miles back home.
The film follows their journey back home and the efforts of the authorities and the tracker to catch them. The journey is tough, especially in the bleak Australian landscape that the film highlights, but the kids are determined to come home. The only guide they have is the rabbit-proof fence, a fence running thousands of miles north back to their hometown of Jigalong. Originally constructed to keep pests out of Australia's farmlands, the fence ends up being a sign of hope for the kids. A hundred miles or a thousand, they know that their mother is waiting for them at the other end. In a nice little scene, the children grab the fence and over a thousand miles away their mother holds onto it as well as if to say, "I'm right beside you."
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a heartbreaking look into Australia's past, but is also an uplifting reminder of the human spirit. How's that for a cliche? But this is the very type of film where those cliches actually ring true.
Grade: B+
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