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Review by Susan Granger
3½ stars out of 4
Cinema is a provocative medium and, every now and then, a film comes
along that not only entertains but elucidates important social issues as
reflected through the microcosm of one human story. Australian director Phillip
Noyce ("Patriot Games," "The Saint") probes a dark period in his country's
history, set at a time when a 1,500-mile barbed-wire rabbit-proof fence was
under construction. White men involved in this project often mated with
Aboriginal women, resulting in half-caste children who were forcibly taken from
their mothers in a cruel attempt to assimilate and, ultimately, breed "the
coloured problem" out of existence. These children became known as The Stolen
Generation...and this is a true story of three little girls who were forcibly
taken from their mothers in 1931 in Jigalong, Western Australia. The heroine is
14 year-old Molly (Everlyn Sampi), whose silent resilience resonates and propels
her younger sister Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) and cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan)
into running from the internment camp, then following the fence through the
harsh Outback with a fierce determination to find their way home. The
reprehensibly misguided, racist villain is A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), Chief
Protector of the Aborigines, who dispatches a tracker (David Gupilil) and
several officers after them. Christopher Doyle's stark, bleached photography is
awesome, as is Peter Gabriel's score, utilizing indigenous rhythms and
instruments. But Christine Olsen's script lacks raw dramatic tension; the
outcome is a foregone conclusion; and there's so little character development
that the bereft mothers have more emotional impact than the trio of girls. On
the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is a realistic,
compelling 8, a bold triumph of the human spirit against overwhelming odds.
Copyright © 2002 Susan Granger
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