Rabbit-Proof Fence

I haven't seen many of Phillip Noyce's films. Only Dead Calm, which I loved, although The Quiet American is on my list of "to see" films. So, I don't have much to compare this film to within his oeuvre. My first thought was that it was going to be a heavy-duty weeper, since he'd chosen a subject that few in this day and age would not find abhorrent. In the 1930s (actually, from the 1910s through the 1970s), Australian officials were legally allowed to remove half-caste (white and aboriginal mix) children from their families and put them in camps to teach them the "ways of the white men." Three girls escape and walk back home -- over 1500 miles -- along Australia's rabbit-proof fence. There are places in the film where you feel like weeping, that's true, but the arc of the story gives you many more opportunities to cheer and smile than to weep. The child actors are phenomenal. They'd never acted before, but the lead is entrancing. And, I wonder whether Noyce was channelling Peter Weir in some of his sequences. The music is based on Australian aboriginal instruments and in many instances it's as haunting as that never-will-forget throbbing from Picnic at Hanging Rock.

year: 2002
length: 94 min.
rating: 3.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252444/combined