"Rabbit-Proof Fence" tells true story that's chilling, inspiringSome stories are so inherently horrific that a sensitive filmmaker will step out of the way. With "Patriot Games" and "A Clear and Present Danger," Australian director Phillip Noyce proved that he could orchestrate Hollywood overkill. But this year, with "Rabbit-Proof Fence" (and the upcoming "The Quiet American"), Noyce shows that he understands restraint just as well. "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is based on a true story within a shameful chapter of Australian history. From 1905 to 1970, the official policy of the federal government was to take custody of all children who had one white and one Aborigine parent. These "half-caste" children were sent to Christian boarding schools, where they were purged of their native language and beliefs and trained for jobs as domestic servants. The film is set in 1931. A blinkered bureaucrat named A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh) is the administrator of this legalized kidnapping. Neville extols a doctrine of selective breeding that is not far removed from Nazi eugenics, yet he promotes it with a paternal certitude that makes it all the more chilling. In the barren northern outpost of Jigalong, uniformed guards arrive to seize three Aborigine girls: 14-year-old Molly (Everlyn Sampi), 8-year-old Daisy (Tianna Sansbury) and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie (Laura Monaghan). Over the shrieking protests of the village women, the girls are ensnared and transported 1,200 miles south to a Christian foster home. But their stay in the Dickensian dormitory is short-lived. Quietly defiant Molly takes the girls by the hand and declares that they are escaping - on foot. Although they are not sure where they are, they figure to travel north along the rabbit-proof fence that divides Western Australia in half. (It was the construction of this 1,500-mile pest-control fence that brought so many white men to the Outback, where they fathered - and abandoned - half-caste children.) To capture the escapees, the school dispatches its native-born tracker, Moodoo (David Gulpilil, Aborigine star of "Walkabout"). But the girls prove uncommonly resourceful, and soon word reaches Neville that they are loose in the wild. Neville organizes a nationwide manhunt for the threesome, but the girls elicit food and shelter from sympathetic settlers while skirting the dragnet. In cinematic terms, the trek isn't nearly as harrowing as a more didactic director might have depicted it. The girls' preternatural fortitude complements the eerie solitude of the desert landscapes (although thankfully we are spared the stereotype of the psychic Aborigine until a late scene, when Molly's mother senses her impending arrival). Fittingly, the three young actresses are first-timers who had never even seen a film before. The screenplay for "Rabbit-Proof Fence" was adapted from a book ("Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence") by the real-life Molly's daughter. An epilogue where we learn Molly's eventual fate is such a shocker that it literally doubles the film's considerable impact. But even without a punch line, this true story is a powerful tale of human perseverance against inhuman obstacles.
Critic Joe Williams
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