Film Review Of Rabbit-Proof Fence

August Wilson did not name his play, Fences, simply due to the melodramatic actions that take place in the Maxson household, but rather the relationships that bond and break because of the “fence”. The “fence” serves as a structural device because the character's lives are constantly changing during the construction of the fence. The dramatic actions in the play strongly depend on the building of the fence in the Maxson’s backyard. Fences represents the metaphorical walls or fences that the main characters are creating around themselves in order to keep people in or vice versa. The title may seem straightforward, but in actuality it is a powerful symbol which can either have positive or

Since the European settlement of Australia, the Indigenous people have been represented in a myriad of ways. The Rabbits (1998), an allegorical picture book by John Marsden (writer) and Shaun Tan (illustrator) and Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), a film directed by Phillip Noyce, are just two examples of this. Techniques such as music, changing camera angles and symbolism are utilised in Rabbit Proof Fence to represent the Aboriginal people as strong-willed and spiritual and in The Rabbits, exaggeration, different colour themes and perspective are used to portray the Aborigines as technologically inferior and overwhelmed against the Europeans. In both texts, the Indigenous people are represented as

Australian people and culture are often stereotyped in the media in different forms, one of them being film. The two films being examined, ‘Red dog’ (2011) and the ‘Sapphires’ (2012), are an example of the Australian identity but from different points of view. ‘Red dog’ shows the kind and positive side which exemplifies mateship and loyalty. The film ‘Sapphires’ ,which takes place in the 1950’s through to the 1960’s, shows a negative and racist view towards the indigenous people. Both the films show different aspects of the Australian identity, not all insights of the films accurately represent contemporary Australian identity as the Australian identity has changed by the evolution of people and their lifestyle.

The text chosen for this unit id the book Refuge by prominent Australian writer Jackie French (2013). Refuge follows the story of Faris, a young refugee feeling from his homeland with his grandmother to Australia. On the dangerous boat journey from Indonesia to Australia, they encounter a terrible storm where Faris falls unconscious and wakes up living his dream life in Australia. However, he has no recollection of how he got there. Whilst on the beach, he meets a strange group of children all from different times and places. Faris soon discovers that each child is like him, a migrant who travelled to Australia searching for a better place. Each child is living in their own ‘dream’ Australia and the beach provides a sort of ‘refuge’ from reality for them. Eventually, Faris has to make the decision to either continue living in this dream land or face his reality. This book is interesting as unlike other refugee texts, this novel serves to tell the multicultural history of Australian immigration. French relays the more than 60 000 year old history of people travelling to Australia by boat and makes the statement that all immigrants and refugees need to be treated with empathy and understanding.

In the orientation of the film Blair uses techniques such as setting, this is an important technique as different settings can either show a rise of reduction of prejudice towards indigenous people. The film begins in the Australian outback, where the audience is first introduce to two characters Gail and Kay. The two girls are cousins and are running across the scene, they make up about 10% of the height of the screen. Blair uses long-shot contrasting their vulnerability. Establishment shots of the homes and buildings and also seen, we as the audience understand that the girls are relatively poor as there are many family member sharing minimal houses, they are living in close proximity to each other and live in a remote area. Already Blair has expressed the theme of prejudice by depicting the isolation indigenous people have with white communities. The aboriginal families seem to be living in a mission environment contrasting that they were disadvantaged from the European settlers. After seeing the earlier setting of the

Rabbit Proof Fence is a movie directed by Phillip Noyce based on the novel by Doris Pilkington Garimara. In the excerpt, ‘The Stealing of Children,’ it shows the offspring of the indigenous people being taken away from their parents as the white settlers thought they weren’t being treated properly. Events like these occurred from 1910-1970 in Australia’s history. Many aboriginal children didn’t want to be taken away and the fictional story, based on real events, of Rabbit Proof Fence has been created from the point of view of those people living at this time. The director has created many representations of Aboriginal people through the use of language features, visual elements and the audio components.

Rabbit Proof Fence has been published both as a book and as a movie. Being a reader or a viewer entirely changes our point of view on the story. As a reader, we get descriptive insight on the situations and emotions of the characters. We are then able to re-create these visually using our imagination and have endless freedom doing so. As a viewer, our creativity is somewhat restricted. We do not imagine the characters’ physical appearance, the locations or the overall situations in the same way as in a book. These elements are already given to us. Throughout this essay I will be exploring how the music and the filming creates a contrast between reading the book with elaborate descriptions.

In this film, it also shows how important their loved ones are to them. Like when the three girls get taken away, they used their hands to bang against the window, showing their sadness of separation, and their connection of their love and wanting to be close with their family at every time possible, because every time they were together was a moment each treasured. Their grandmother felt the pain they were feeling, of desperation, frustration and powerlessness, and that is shown to us when she hits herself with a rock on her head to make her bleed. Also the howling sounds she makes shows the pain she feels and makes us feel her pain, too.

In the opening of the film, the three girls are learning how to hunt for lizards by their mother. It highlights the traditional Aboriginal culture in contrast with the Western culture (shown later in the film). When the children arrive back home, they are carefully observed by a police officer from afar. They are seen chatting to a man who is working on one of three rabbit proof fences. These fences were 3,253 kilometres in length and spans across Western Australia. It is here that we learn Molly’s father is white and has left their mother to work on another section of the rabbit proof fence. Suddenly, a white constable, under the command of the Chief Protector of Aborigines, A.O Neville, arrives and forces the three girls in an automobile with their family chasing after the car

Once the family has been evacuated and are on a train to an internment camp, the daughter takes over as narrator and represents a different impression of the Japanese Americans. The

‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ was the story of a 3 young Aboriginal girls who were taken from their homes because they were ‘half castes’ and then their long walk home following the rabbit proof fence. The idea of the government taking children from their homes and placing them into the care of white people in the hope of them losing their cultural beliefs was stronger. This idea of them being changed was evident with quotes such as “This is your new home. We don't use that jabber here. You speak English” providing the idea of whites being dominant through their values.

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence by Philip Noyce takes place in 1931 in a small town named Jigalong in Western Australia. Along the town is a rabbit-proof fence that runs for miles through the Australian Outback. The film focuses on three aboriginal girls, 14-year-old Molly, her younger 8-year-old sister Daisy, and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie. The officers removed the girls from their family and forced them to assimilate into white society. The chief A. O. Neville legally removed the aboriginal girls from their family because they were half-castes which means they are half one white parent and one Aboriginal parent. In this case, the girls had an aboriginal mother and a white father who was a worker near their area, but the father in not take part in the girl’s life. The Chief wanted to take away all the half-castes from the Aboriginal homes so they could eventually breed the aboriginals out of existence as well as give the half-caste a better life in their modern society. These camps held lots of indigenous children and trained the children to become laborers and servants for the white families. Soon after arriving at the Moore River camp, the three girls escaped after the first night and made a 1,500-mile journey home. Molly, Gracie, and Daisy left as soon as it began to rain so their tracks could be covered. Although at the camp, the workers soon noticed the girls had escaped and sent the Aboriginal tracker to go find them and return them back to Moore River camp. The girls later found the rabbit-proof fence and followed it north to find Jigalong. On their way back to home, they met an aboriginal man who told the girls that Gracie’s mother was in Wiluna and she could take a train to meet her. Soon after Gracie parted ways, the tracker captured Gracie and they returned back to Moore River. Daisy and Molly continued to follow the fence and finally arrived home to meet their mother. Although, the family had to leave to go hide in the desert in order for the family to stay together. After the movie ends, there is a short clip of the real Molly and Daisy in 2002. The captions said that Gracie did not survive her way back to Moore River Camp and she was never seen again. Molly also stated that the government took

The recent Australian film, Rabbit Proof Fence, similarly condemns the social, political and cultural mores of colonial and post-colonial Australia in relation to its past treatment of indigenous Australians. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, it too, is set in the 1930’s and reflects similar attitudes and values whites have to black people. The film is a true story based on the book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter of one of the half-caste children in the film who, together with two other Aboriginal girls, was forcibly removed from her family in Jigalong, Western Australia. These children form part of what is now known as the “Stolen Generation”. They, like many others who lived in the first part of the 20th century, were the victims of the official government assimilationist policy which decreed that half-caste children should be taken from their families and their land in order to be made “white”. The policy was definitely aimed at “breeding out” Aboriginality, because only half and quarter caste children were taken.

Rabbit Proof Fence is a great film based on the real tale and experiences of three young Aboriginal girls, Molly, Gracie and Daisy, who were taken against their will from their families in Jigalong, Western Australia in 1931. The film puts a human face on the "Stolen Generation", an event which categorized links between the government and Aborigines in Australia for a lot of the 20th century.

The movie, Rabbit Proof Fence, directed by Phillip Noyce, tells the story about three young aboriginals girls’ name, Molly, Daisy, and Gracie, who were taken away from their families and homes to be brought up in white society. The girls are related; two sisters and a cousin. The story reveals the struggles the girls encounters while trying to run away from Moore River, which is a settlement camp where half-caste native (children with both white and Native parents) children are educated on how to live with white population. The girls are taught to become servants, and they are prohibited from using any other language but English. The settlement camp where these girls are held is far away from their home, which separates them from their