Nearly everything about Rabbit-Proof Fence is astonishing.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:133
Fresh:116
Rotten:17
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: Visually beautiful and well-acted, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells a compelling true-life story.
Theatrical Release:Nov 29, 2002 Limited
Box Office: $6,031,193
Synopsis: Set in Australia in 1931, RABBIT-PROOF FENCE tells the story of a government policy that required "half-caste" children (whose mothers were Aboriginal and whose fathers were white) to be taken from... Set in Australia in 1931, RABBIT-PROOF FENCE tells the story of a government policy that required "half-caste" children (whose mothers were Aboriginal and whose fathers were white) to be taken from their homes by the authorities to be trained to work as servants. Based on the true story of Molly Craig, Philip Noyce's film of small gestures and few words follows the odyssey of three young girls who escaped from the government's training facility and, using the country's long stretches of rabbit-proof fences as their guide, walked 1500 miles to get back home. Told squarely from Molly's point of view, RABBIT-PROOF FENCE also highlights the Australian government's treatment of Aboriginies by A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), the legal guardian of the country's indigenous people. His plan to "breed out" the Aboriginal blood of the half-castes is marked by a cool calculation and moral blindness that stands out in sharp contrast to Molly's spiritual and intuitive relationship to the people and places she encounters on her journey. [More]
Starring: Ningali Lawford, David Gulpilil, Jason Clarke, Deborah Mailman
Starring: Ningali Lawford, David Gulpilil, Jason Clarke, Deborah Mailman, Kenneth Branagh
Director: Phillip Noyce
Director: Phillip Noyce
Screenwriter: Christine Olsen
Producer: Phillip Noyce, Christine Olsen, John Winter
Composer: Peter Gabriel
Studio: Miramax Films
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Release:
Apr 15, 2003
Reviews for Rabbit-Proof Fence
Noyce has found remarkable newcomers to play the children, particularly Everlyn Sampi.
The viewer takes great pleasure in watching the resourceful Molly stay a step ahead of her pursuers.
This journey, which evokes some of the same mystery of the outback evoked in many other Australian films (notably Walkabout), is beautiful, harrowing and sometimes heartbreaking.
It would be easy, but wrong, to attribute the story's shock value to dramatic license
Its portrait of a corrosive national policy of racial superiority is as much a window as it is a mirror and is unsettling in a too-familiar way.
Somewhat stolid pacing keeps the film from fulfilling its potential, but it is always touching, if tough to watch.
Noyce creates a film of near-hypnotic physical beauty even as he tells a story as horrifying as any in the heart-breakingly extensive annals of white-on-black racism.
Rabbit-Proof Fence will probably make you angry. But it will just as likely make you weep, and it will do so in a way that doesn't make you feel like a sucker.
All of Rabbit-Proof Fence's characters are so well-drawn, so human -- that even in the harsh light of history -- it remains difficult to understand how Australia allowed such inhumanity to become institutional, mechanized and accepted.
This film is about longing, a tribal longing. Ultimately, the tribe in question is mankind.
Noyce utilizes simple, stylish camerawork and spare dialogue to delivery pregnantly poignant anguish.
Latest News for Rabbit-Proof Fence
April 29, 2008:
Philip Noyce Learning The Art of Making Money ![]()
Philip Noyce is in talks to direct DreamWorks' The Art of Making Money, a film about notorious counterfeiter Art Williams. More...
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