Rating: 
Summary: Watch the absorbing documentary...
Review: I won't gush on and on about the excellent movie. I want to bring your attention to the "Making of" documentary. So often these are thrown onto a DVD as a "bonus", but amount to nothing more than a refried re-telling of the film. Here, instead, we are treated to forty-five minutes of how Philip Noyce selected his three young actresses, and all the trials and tribulations that entailed. The scene in the film of the three children being taken from their mothers is a very heart-wrenching scene. But, moving beyond compare is that same scene as caught by the "making of" cameras during and after the shoot. Many of the people behind the cameras were in tears during the actual filming of the scene. At the end of the scene, the character mothers are on the ground crying and Noyce yells, "CUT!". He looks down and you can hear the actresses still crying. He looks up and around the camera with a puzzled look on his face to see if perhaps the actresses did not hear him yell, "CUT". They are all still on the ground sobbing, and he has to go over to console them, saying "Woa, Woa, Woa..." to calm them down and bring them out of it because everyone was so drawn into the event they were reenacting they forgot they were only filming a scene. That was very moving to see how the girls and women were so affected by the filming of that scene. Insights such as this are what make the "Making of" documentary actually worth watching after the film itself.
Rating: 
Summary: The Evil of 'Knowing What's Best'
Review: This was a fabulous movie, extremely well acted, and even our children (10 and 7) thoroughly enjoyed it. It was intensely moving and gave insight into terrible policies I had previously known little about. I think previous reviewers missed the point a little. This movie, to me, is not about 'good guys' and 'bad guys', but highlights the terrible mistakes and abuses that can come from one group thinking they know what's best for another people. It is about cultural arrogance.
My 10 year old is now anxious to read the book and plans to ask her teacher to read it to the class next year. Now THAT's a compliment.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating & illuminating
Review: RABBIT PROOF FENCE illustrates a piece of Australian history that I, as an American, knew nothing about. From 1931 to 1970, the aborigines were under the "guardianship" of a British bureaucrat, with the particular idea of separating "half-caste" aborigines from their full-blooded parents and putting them in a home so they could learn how to be servants and low-wage employees.We follow three girls (aged 8-14) who are separated from their homes and placed in this camp some 1200 miles away. Molly, the oldest girl, who is quite clever and spirited, leads the three on a daring escape and journey back to their home. Their journey is amazing, because the endure lengthy hardships in the desert, little food, and the treachery of some adults they meet who try to turn these famous refugees over to authorities. They do meet help along the way too, but always they have to be wary of anyone they run into. The movie has flashes of humor, beautiful scenery and some heart-wrenching scenes. Kenneth Branagh plays Neville, the bureaucrat, and is the only "star" in the movie. His part is quite small...he handles it well, but it is NOT his movie. The movie belongs to these three inexperienced actresses, who were "discovered" by director Philip Noyce and put to work in these tricky parts. And they pull it off so well. They are all outstanding at conveying their sense of fear, of outrage, or courage and they have a certain stillness that shows how reserved they feel around these white strangers who have uprooted them. The movie is not exactly fast-paced, but I found it fascinating all the way through. It quietly draws us in, because we are rooting for the lead characters. The fact that this is a TRUE story (we meet some of the main characters towards the end) makes it all the more riveting. It's one of those rare films that completely educates you about an obscure but important part of history, but entirely through the power of great storytelling. We never feel we are "learning," yet at the end of the movie, you want to go find out more about this time in history. The movie is rated PG, but might not be very interesting to kids under 11 or so. A recommended experience! (By the way, the bonus feature on the DVD about the making of the film is outstanding. So often, these little features are nearly worthless, but we spend 40 minutes learning how the kids were discovered and trained. It is absolutely fascinating, and in my opinion, after watching the film, you should immediately watch the featurette!!!)
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing enactment of shameful history
Review: Based on a true story, this film tells the tale of Gracie, Daisy, and Molly (Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan), three half-white, half-Aborigine children who, in acordance with official Australian policy, were kidnapped from their home and sent to a boarding school to train for life as domestics so that they could enter the white world, thereby "rescuing" them from a supposedly inferior black world. Unwilling to endure the seperation from their loved ones, the girls dedicate themselves to escaping back to their home. The three untrained child actors deliver stunning, authentic performances. Kenneth Branagh's performance as policy director A.O. Neville is chilling because he honestly seems to care about what happens to the children of the Stolen Generations, as they are called, even though his policy is based upon dangerous, vile racist principles and total disregard for the humanity of the aboriginal peoples.
Rating: 
Summary: hollywood tricks, independent story
Review: Who would have guessed that Australia, of all places, would have such race purifying regulations in place until as recently as 1970? These regulations allowed the Australian government to abduct any half-castes (mix-breed, Aboriginal/Caucasion) and relocate them into camps, not only to force western culture, religion and language upon them, but also to prevent them from mating with full-blood aboriginals in order to cleanse the aboriginal culture into non-existence. Trust me, you won't believe it, even after you see it. Technically, Rabbit-Proof Fence is a chase movie, utilizing many of the Hollywood conventions of close-calls, miscues, and a soundscape that adds to the tensions tenfold. The film is also so much more, especially emotionally, with wonderfully developed characters (this is often over-looked in Hollywood chase movies). The three half-caste girls (Sampi, Sansbury and Monaghan) give some of the most natural child performances in cinema, especially considering that during a majority of the film they only have each other to play off of. They truly give the film a natural, honest, documentary feel which adds so much to the emotional impact. Branagh, though not very "natural", brilliantly portrays the man behind the cleansing scheme, a man that could quite easily hang with Hitler and hold his own in conversations about the ways and means to white supremecy. Its so nice to see something this fresh and touching, a film that doesn't come up roses in the end, but still leaves with much hope and heart. Sure Rabbit-Proof Fence is saturated with political and social issues, but in the end it really is a story of over-coming the odds and surviving in such an ugly, angry world.
Rating:
Summary: "Rabbit-Proof Fence" a harrowing tale of loss and courage
Review: Phillip Noyce's "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is based on the true story of Daisy, Molly and Gracie, three half-caste children in Western Australia in 1931. The Australian government continued enforcing until 1970 a law that allowed mixed race children to be removed forcibly from their parents and sent to boarding schools to "educate" them for a white world. The girls were trained to be servants and domestics. The whole system was similar to the Indian schools in the United States, where First Nations children were sent to be raised as pious, productive, educated young adults, but the system there too frequently failed. The plan was that the half-caste girls would marry whites or other half-castes and have the Aboriginal "bred out of them," as policy director A.O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh) explains to a local ladies' society. Daisy, Molly and Gracie are sent to the Moore River Native Settlement in Perth, over 2000 kilometres from their home in Jigalong Station. They do not last more than a few days before Molly, the ringleader, plans their escape through brush and desert, finding her way home by following the rabbit-proof fence, the longest in the world, that divides pasture from rabbit-infested bush. Neville and his men, including a skilled Aboriginal tracker, Moodoo (film veteran David Gulpilil) search for weeks in pursuit of the girls, and one is eventually recaptured in a harrowing scene, only steps from safety with the other girls. There is very little in the way of dialogue, and although Noyce's child actors are all unskilled, there are remarkable performances and true moments of fear, desperation, and grief shine through. The girls' mother and grandmother are particularly effective at conveying the mind-shattering grief they must live with knowing that they may never see their girls again. In one touching scene, at separate points on the fence, thousands of kilometres apart, both the mother and the girls tightly grip the fence, lightly shaking it, as if they could feel the resulting vibrations and sense the others' presence there. The cinematography shows off the dry palette of the desert, the spectacular desert sunsets, the shimmering wave of heat that covers the landscape. This film reminded me in some ways of the 1971 Australian film "Walkabout," which starred Gulpilil as an Aboriginal teenager, and follows two white children that are stranded in the outback with only Gulpilil as a guide. The "Rabbit-Proof Fence" score by Peter Gabriel is low-key and appropriately tension-filled, meditative and mysterious at key moments, with wisps of Aboriginal chant and song woven into a lush synth background, and reminded me of the excellent soundtrack to Australian sci-fi series "Ocean Girl" by Garry McDonald and Laurie Stone. The narration at the beginning and end of the movie was the most powerful for me: the real-life Molly and Daisy, now old women in bright clothes that are startlingly out of place against the backdrop of the outback they slowly walk through, tell how the story ended. And that was the saddest truth of all. The included documentary "Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence" shows Noyce flying to remote outback communities looking for Aboriginal child actors, auditioning thousands of hopefuls before settling on the final three, Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, and Laura Monaghan, as well as the emotional journey for the temperamental star and the harrowing experience of filming the girls' abduction at the hands of a white officer. Pretty much the whole cast and crew was in tears and shaken afterwards, forced to relive the crucial moment that defined the "Stolen Generations:" the theft from their mothers' arms, some never to be seen or heard from again. An excellent film that treats a little-known subject outside of Australia (and fairly unspoken within), with the fresh-faced innocence of children who beat the odds and found their way home across 2000 km of largely uninhabited, hostile terrain to the waiting arms of their family.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Film about Australia's "Stolen Generations"
Review: Based on (part of) a true story, "Rabbit-Proof Fence" details the long journey that three young aboriginal girls embark on after being forcefully taken from their family in order to learn how to "fit into" a white society. The story is fascinating, and the execution from director Phillip Noyce is stunning. This is a perfect film for history teachers to show their students. The performances are very natural and winning. Peter Gabriel's score is excellent - with the music playing over the closing credits being some of his best work ever (and appearing in a slightly different form as "Sky Blue" on his 2002 album, _UP_). If you have seen this movie and enjoyed it, the DVD is a keeper. The audio commentary from Noyce is superbly done. In addition to giving the viewer background as to how and why he did the movie, he also offers up some interesting tidbits about the difference between working on mainstream films ("Clear & Present Danger," "Sliver," etc.) and smaller films like "Rabbit-Proof Fence" and "The Quiet American." A good documentary is included as well.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating history lesson...
Review: While I knew that white Austrailians had difficulties with their dealings with the Aboriginal peoples just as we in the U.S. have had with the many Native tribes I had no idea it had lasted so long. Now I have to do some research on when we USians stopped taking children away from parents. This is an excellent cultural consciousness film and a good story too. The extra documentary of the filming process is also very well done. The children who made this film were enchanting. I am going to buy another copy for my personal collection.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: I bawled. An extriemly moving touching powerful film. Highly reccomended.
Rating:
Summary: Watch the Documentary
Review: If you watch this film, I highly recommend watching the "making of" documentary. I thought the story as told in the movie was pretty interesting, but I thought that the documentary helped me appreciate the film infinitely more. The director did a phenomenal job given the resources he had available, and I think the result was a beautiful film.
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