Rabbit-Proof Fence

Western Australia, 1931. Government policy includes taking half-caste children from their Aboriginal mothers and sending them a thousand miles away to what amounts to indentured servitude, "to save them from themselves." Molly, Daisy, and Grace (two sisters and a cousin who are 14, 10, and 8) arrive at their Gulag and promptly escape, under Molly's lead. For days they walk north, following a fence that keeps rabbits from settlements, eluding a native tracker and the regional constabulary. Their pursuers take orders from the government's "chief protector of Aborigines," A.O. Neville, blinded by Anglo-Christian certainty, evolutionary world view and conventional wisdom. Can the girls survive?

Rabbit-Proof Fence takes us into the world of the so-called ‘stolen generation’ and reveals the colonialist attitudes that have for hundreds of years stood in the way of empathic understanding of indigenous peoples.

Comments

Empathy and Lack of Empathy

Grabs the audience and takes them up close and personal into the plight of Australia's stolen generation.

 

Beyond empathizing with the young protagonists and their incredible journey, the film highlights the severe lack of empathy that defines many government policies towards native peoples.

 

Good addition to the empathy library.

Rating: 
4
Rating: 
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
Year: 
2002
Director: 
Phillip Noyce
Country: 
Australia