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".
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.
Map of the rabbit-proof fence showing the trip from Moore River to Jigalong
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.
Epilogue
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.
Reception
Public reception
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]
Critical response
The film received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes's score is 88% based on 145 reviews. The site's Critics' 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]
Box office
Rabbit-Proof Fence grossed $16.2 million worldwide, including $3.8 million in Australia.[12]
^Brewster, Anne (2007). "The Stolen Generations: Rites of Passage: Doris Pilkington interviewed by Anne Brewster (22 January 2005)". The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 42 (1): 143–159. doi:10.1177/0021989407075735. S2CID220818218.
