Rabbit-Proof Fence | |
---|---|
Directed by | Phillip Noyce |
Screenplay by | Christine Olsen |
Based on | Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara |
Produced by | Phillip Noyce Christine Olsen John Winter |
Starring | Everlyn Sampi Tianna Sansbury Laura Monaghan David Gulpilil Kenneth Branagh |
Cinematography | Christopher Doyle |
Edited by | Veronika Jenet John Scott |
Music by | Peter Gabriel |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Becker Entertainment |
Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes [1] |
Country | Australia |
Languages | Walmajarri English |
Budget | USD$6 million |
Box office | USD$16.2 million |
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a 2002 Australian epic drama film directed and produced by Phillip Noyce. It was based on the 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara, an Aboriginal Australian author. It is loosely based on the author's mother Molly Craig, aunt Daisy Kadibil, and cousin Gracie, who escaped from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, Western Australia, to return to their Aboriginal families. They had been removed from their families and placed there in 1931.
The film follows the Aboriginal girls as they walk for nine weeks along 1,600 km (990 mi) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong. They were pursued by white law enforcement officials and an Aboriginal tracker. [2] The film explores the official child removal policy that existed in Australia between approximately 1905 and 1967. Its victims, who were taken from their families, now are called the "Stolen Generations".
The soundtrack to the film, called Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence , is by English singer and songwriter Peter Gabriel. British producer Jeremy Thomas, who has a long connection with Australia, was executive producer of the film. He sold it internationally through his company HanWay Films. In 2005 the British Film Institute included this film in the BFI list of the "50 films one should see by the age of 14."
In 1931, two sisters –14-year-old Molly and 8-year-old Daisy –and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie are living in the Western Australian town of Jigalong. The town lies along the northern part of one of the fences making up Australia's rabbit-proof fence (called Number One Fence), which runs for over one thousand miles.
More than a thousand miles away in Perth, the official Protector of Western Australian Aborigines, A. O. Neville (called Mr. Devil by them), signs an order to relocate the three girls to the Moore River Native Settlement. The children are referred to by Neville as "half-castes", because they each have Aboriginal mothers and white fathers. Neville had concluded that the Aboriginal people of Australia were a danger to themselves, and the "half-castes" must be bred out of existence. He plans to place the girls in a camp where they, along with all half-castes of that age range, both boys and girls, will grow up.
They would be trained to work as labourers and servants to white families, which were regarded as "good" situations for them in life. It was assumed that they would marry whites, and so on through the generations, so that eventually the Aboriginal "blood" would diminish in society.
The three girls are forcibly taken from their families at Jigalong by a local constable, Riggs. They were sent to the camp at the Moore River Native Settlement, in the south west, about 90 km (55 miles) north of Perth.
While at the camp, the girls are housed in a large dormitory with dozens of other children, where they are strictly regimented by nuns. They are prohibited from speaking their native language, forced to pray as Christians, and subject to corporal punishment for any infractions of the camp's rules. Attempts at escape are also harshly punished. During an impending thunderstorm that will help cover their tracks, Molly convinces the girls to escape and return to their home.
During their flight, the girls are relentlessly pursued by Moodoo, an Aboriginal tracker from the camp. They eventually find their way back to the rabbit-proof fence, which will lead them toward their home. They follow the fence for months, just barely escaping capture several times. Neville spreads word that Gracie's mother is waiting for her in the town of Wiluna. The information finds its way to an Aboriginal traveller who "helps" the girls.
He tells Gracie about her mother and says they can get to Wiluna by train, causing her to leave the other two girls in an attempt to catch a train to Wiluna. Molly and Daisy soon walk after her and find her at a train station. They are not reunited, however, as Riggs appears and Gracie is recaptured. The betrayal is revealed by Riggs, who tells the man he will receive a shilling for his help.
Knowing they are powerless to aid her, Molly and Daisy continue their journey. In the end, after a nine-week journey through the harsh Australian outback, having walked the 1,600 km (990 mi) route along the fence, the two sisters return home and go into hiding in the desert with their mother and grandmother. Meanwhile, Neville realizes he can no longer afford the search for Molly and Daisy, and decides to end it.
The film's epilogue shows recent footage of Molly and Daisy. Molly explains that Gracie died before she could ever return to Jigalong. Molly says that she had two daughters. She and they were taken from Jigalong back to Moore River. She managed to escape with one daughter, her young Annabelle. She carried the girl much of the way along the length of the fence back home. However, when Annabelle was three years old, she was taken away once more. Molly never saw her again. In closing, Molly says that she and Daisy "... are never going back to that place".
The film is adapted from the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence , by Doris Pilkington Garimara, an Aboriginal Australian. It is the second book of her trilogy documenting her family's stories. [3] The other two books are Caprice: A Stockman’s Daughter (1991) and Under the Wintamarra Tree (2002).
Stills photographs in the film were made by well-known Aboriginal Australian photographer Mervyn Bishop. [4] His work is held at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia.
The film stirred controversy in Australia relating to the government's historical policy of removing mixed-race Aboriginal children from their families in Aboriginal communities and placing them in state institutions. They became known as the Stolen Generations. [5] [6]
Eric Abetz, a government minister, announced the publication of a leaflet criticising the film's portrayal of the treatment of Indigenous Australians, and demanded an apology from the filmmakers. Director Phillip Noyce suggested that instead the government should apologise to the numerous Indigenous people affected by the removal policy. [5]
Conservative commentators, such as Andrew Bolt, also attacked the historical accuracy of the film. Bolt criticised the numerous disparities between the film and Pilkington Garimara's novel. This angered the author, who said that Bolt had misquoted her. [5] The academic Robert Manne in turn accused Bolt of historical denialism. Screenwriter Christine Olsen wrote a detailed response to Bolt's claims. [6]
Olsen attributed the angry response among some of the public to the fact that it was based in events that were "demonstrably true" and well-documented. [5] However, the filmmaker said that the film was meant primarily as a drama rather than a political or historical statement. Noyce said, "If drama comes from conflict, there's no greater conflict in Australian history than the conflict between Indigenous Australians and white settlers." [5]
The historian Keith Windschuttle also disputed the film's depiction of events. In his work The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, he wrote that Molly and the two other girls had been removed for their own welfare, and that the two older girls had been sexually involved with white men. Noyce and Olsen rejected these criticisms, stating that Windschuttle's research was incomplete. [7] Pilkington Garimara denied Windschuttle's claims of sexual activity between her mother and local whites, stating that the claims were a distortion of history. [8]
The film received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 87% based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The site's consensus states, "Visually beautiful and well-acted, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells a compelling true-life story." [9] On Metacritic the film has a score of 80 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [10]
David Stratton of SBS awarded the film four stars out of five, commenting that Rabbit-Proof Fence is a "bold and timely film about the stolen generations." [11]
Rabbit-Proof Fence grossed $16.2 million worldwide, including $3.8 million in Australia. [12]
Everlyn Lee Marie Sampi is an Australian actress. She is of Bardi Australian Aboriginal and Scottish descent.
Hyperdescent is the practice of classifying a child of mixed race ancestry in the more socially dominant of the parents' races.
Phillip Roger Noyce is an Australian film and television director. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama ; thrillers ; and action films. He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as well as the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's The Giver.
The rabbit-proof fence or pest-exclusion fence is one that crosses the state of Western Australia from north to south.
The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the Rabbit-Proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence, and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits, and other agricultural pests from the east, out of Western Australian pastoral areas.
The 1st San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2002, were given on 17 December 2002.
The 74th National Board of Review Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2002, were announced on 4 December 2002 and given on 14 January 2003.
Doris Pilkington Garimara, also known as Doris Pilkington, was an Aboriginal Australian author.
Catherine Edith Macauley Martin was an Australian novelist who used the pseudonyms M.C. and Mrs Alick MacLeod, also published anonymously.
The Martu (Mardu) are a grouping of several Aboriginal Australian peoples in the Western Desert cultural bloc.
The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) was the government agency responsible for funding commercial productions of Australian film, documentary, and television from 1988 to 2008. Unlike other publicly funded organisations responsible for financing media production in Australia, the FFC operated as a commercially oriented funding agency, backing projects with the intention of recouping part of its funding through investment. The organisation was responsible for financing several notable Australian feature films, among them Strictly Ballroom (1992), Muriel's Wedding (1994) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). During its lifetime, the FFC supported 248 features with a total investment of A$662 million. In 2008, the FFC was succeeded by Screen Australia, which merged the similar film financing bodies operated by the Australian government.
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is an Australian book by Doris Pilkington, published in 1996. Based on a true story, the book is a personal account of an Indigenous Australian family's experiences as members of the Stolen Generation—the forced removal of mixed-race children from their families during the early 20th century. It tells the story of three young Aboriginal girls: Molly, Daisy, and Gracie, who are forcibly removed from their families at Jigalong and taken to Moore River, but escape from the government settlement in 1931 and then trek over 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) home by following the rabbit-proof fence, a massive pest-exclusion fence that crossed Western Australia from north to south.
Jigalong is a remote Aboriginal community of approximately 333 people located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The traditional owners of the land are the Martu people.
David Elfick is an Australian film and television writer, director, producer and occasional actor. He is known for his association with writer-director Phillip Noyce, with whom he has collaborated on films including Newsfront (1978) and Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002).
John Winter is an Australian film and television writer, director and producer. He is best known for producing Rabbit-Proof Fence, Doing Time for Patsy Cline and Paperback Hero. His directorial debut Black & White & Sex premiered at the 2011 Sydney Film Festival with its international premiere at the 41st International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film won the 'Best Experimental' at the 2012 ATOM Awards.
Balfour Downs Station is a pastoral lease and cattle station located approximately 132 kilometres (82 mi) northeast of Newman, 88 kilometres (55 mi) east of Roy Hill and 108 kilometres (67 mi) southeast of Nullagine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. At 6,395 square kilometres (2,469 sq mi), it is among the largest cattle stations in Australia.
Emile Paul Sherman is an Australian film and television producer best known for producing the film The King's Speech (2010), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Picture and the BAFTA award for Best Film and Best British Film, and for executive producing television series Top of the Lake, which was nominated for an Emmy, BAFTA and Golden Globe award. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won one; nominated for five BAFTAs and won three, and nominated for two Emmy Awards and won one.
Molly Kelly was an Australian Martu Aboriginal woman, known for her escape from the Moore River Native Settlement in 1931 and subsequent 1,600 km (990 mi) trek home with her half-sister Daisy Kadibil and cousin Gracie Cross. She was a member of the Stolen Generations, who were part-white, part-Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families by the Australian government. Her story was the inspiration for the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence and the film Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Ningali Josie Lawford, also known as Ningali Lawford-Wolf and Josie Ningali Lawford, was an Aboriginal Australian actress known for her roles in the films Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), Bran Nue Dae (2009), and Last Cab to Darwin (2015), for which she was nominated for the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Daisy Kadibil was an Aboriginal Australian woman whose experiences shaped the 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, written by her niece Doris Pilkington Garimara and the subsequent 2002 film Rabbit-Proof Fence.