Rabbit Proof Fence…

was our selection for the girl’s movie night.

Interesting because we could have watched Troy, the Brad Pitt, Troy?
The half-naked, fully buffed Brad Pitt? With a side order of Orlando Bloom?

Of course I’ve seen it before but I would have watched it again, except…

Rabbit Proof Fence is a disturbing, utterly stark, and deeply moving true story.
It depicts the inhumane treatment of Australia’s aboriginal people in the early 1930’s, because darn it, they needed protecting. Half caste children were taken from their mothers to internment camps and raised away from civilization by white nuns. The lighter skinned children were given ‘white’ priviledges with the reasoning that the aboriginal could have a better chance of being bred out of the lineage.
You can’t imagine how heartsick I felt watching this film.

This story focuses on three young girls who are wrenched away from their mothers, taken 1200 miles away (part of the journey in a cage) only to end up in an isolated, prisoner of war-like camp to train as domestic servants. The completely midguided Mr. Neville/Mr. Devil is nastily played by Kenneth Branagh. It was such a hateful role, I can only imagine he took it because it was so against type.

The three girls run away from the camp, and are followed by an Aborginal tracker who is ‘hired’ to fetch runaways along with the militant (white) authorities. The story takes us on their journey across the outback to get home. The one link they have to help get them home is the 1500 miles of fence the government erected, the rabbit proof fence.

I won’t give away anymore of the story, because it’s one you need to see.

The sounds of nature fill the soundtrack and it is the most haunting I’ve ever heard. You will not forget the sound of the mother’s mourning or their chanting to the skies to guide the girls home.

This may be the most hauntingly-told true story of triumph you will experience in film.