Film Review: Rabbit Proof Fence

Rabbit Proof Fence is a rare kind of film. Based on a true story, the film is set in Western Australia in the 1930s. At that time, the government had a policy of rounding up half-caste Aboriginal children and placing them in camps to become "civilized." The children were "trained" to become domestic works and become integrated into white society. Incredibly, and disturbingly, these kinds of government policies persisted (in various forms) into the 1970s in Australia. The term Stolen Generations is used to refer to the children who were separated from their families with the intention of removing all vestiges of Aboriginal culture from them.

In Rabbit Proof Fence, we meet three young girls who are kidnapped from their mother and placed into one of these camps. The three girls escape and begin a 1,000-mile journey home to their families, through the desolate Australian backland. The story is based on the life of Molly Craig whose daughter Doris Pilkington wrote the book Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence to document her mother's life. Molly Craig passed away in 2004, after a remarkable (and remarkably sad) life.

You can see a trailer for the film here. Rabbit Proof Fence is easy to find. Check Netflix, Blockbuster, your local library... You'll be glad you did.

One reason this film is particularly applicable to the subject matter of this blog is because of the interlink between a people's history and a people's present tense. In order to understand the kinds of systematic inequalities that persist throughout the world, it is essential to understand the roots, which are sometimes based in a more recent past than we'd like to acknowledge, of those inequalities.

Rabbit Proof Fence is moving to me on a number of levels. I first saw it years ago at the Tower in Salt Lake City. I remember I went with my friends Julie and John (who are now married to each other). I loved it because it taught me something meaningful about opening my eyes to the tragedies of racism, and also the beauty of other people and the world around me. Since then, I've seen the movie two more times. My own motherhood has created an even more intense connection to the film, and a greater empathy for the suffering of the mothers. It’s such a horrible concept: that a racist government could have the power to rip apart loving families. Side- by-side with this tragedy, though, is a very real sense of hope and defiance of racist systems. It’s interesting that re-watching the movie, I was surprised once again at the depth of its tragedy, and I realized that I had completely forgotten some of the more horrendous scenes over time. For whatever reason, after the movie ends the feeling that stays with me is a sense of the movie’s beauty and expansiveness, and over time the sense of outrage fades. Perhaps that’s another theme of the movie: forgiveness, and moving on.