Movie Review

The Australian Film Commission, produced by John Winter, starring: Everlyn Sampi (Molly), Laura Monaghan (Gracie), Tianna Stansbury (Daisy), Kenneth Branagh (Mr. Neil), David Gulpilil (Moodoo), 1 hr 35 minutes, 2002.

This is a film that no Canadian Anglican should fail to see. It is not easy to watch because the parallels to our own experience of Residential Schools are too striking, too emotionally close. It is based on a book by Doris Pilkington Garamond the daughter of one of the characters in the story , Molly.

It was the policy of the government of Western Australia to apprehend children who were half caste, the offspring of Aboriginal and European parents. They were placed in what were called "Native Settlements" for their own protection and are trained to be domestics and maids. The Chief Protector (Branagh) seems to have had absolute power to enforce a government policy of assimilation. It was intended to maintain two races and avoid the creation of a third race. Thus, once there was a half caste (half breed) child the policy was to keep them from marrying blacks so that "the infiltration of white blood would finally stamp out the black colour". The Aboriginal would simply be bred out. "Ïn spite of himself the native must be helped".

Three young girls (Molly and Daisy are sisters and Gracie is their cousin)are forcibly taken from their home in Jigalong and transported 1200 miles south to the Moore River Native Settlement. They are the children of Maude and an unknown white man who had worked on the construction of the rabbit fence in that area. The fence was itself a 1200 mile page wire fence that was erected to keep rabbits from spreading all over the country.

The girls escape from the settlement. This is a regular occurrence and the settlement keeps a tracker (Moodoo) on the staff that regularly recaptures the runaways. He is aboriginal and has a daughter in the settlement who is a kind of 'trusty' who keeps order in the dorms. They are both examples of "oppression internalized" ; they cooperate with the authority that oppresses them and oppress their own people in a hopeless self feeding cycle. He sets out to look for the girls but soon finds that they are formidable and elusive survivors who can live off the land better than he can. Along the way the girls encounter people who treat them kindly and passively cheer them on in a struggle they intuitively know to be unjust. Others are duplicitous and try to trick them into capture in order to curry favour with the authorities. Gracie is indeed captured and taken back to the settlement. The two sisters reflect that they never saw her again. Molly determines that if they can hit the fence they can follow it home all the way. Eventually, that proves to be true and Molly and daisy do arrive back in Jigalong to be greeted by their mother and grandmother and the women of the village who have been keeping vigil ever since they heard of the girls' escape.

Here is a modern version of the biblical themes of Exodus and Exile. How can these captives sing the Lord's songs in a strange land? Literally they cannot sing the hymns and favourite folk songs of their captors. The authorities are not portrayed as monsters and evil people. The matron of the school (Miss Jessup) is a kindly but firm woman who seems to care for her charges. The Protector is a dedicated and compassionate person Rabbit Proof fence who genuinely believes he is administering a policy that is to the benefit of aboriginal people.

In a poignant postscript that shows the two sisters as old women we learn that Molly married and that her children were taken to the settlement, a testimony to the endurance of a wrongheaded policy with disastrous long term consequences. The loss of identity, culture and family has earned the survivors of the Native Settlements the name The Stolen Generation.

Appropriate responses to viewing this movie could include; tears, standing and reciting Canticle 9 (page 80, B.A.S.) and contributing more money to the Diocesan Residential Schools Reconciliation Fund.