Friday, May 21, 2004
Just watched Rabbit-Proof Fence which I found a huge disappointment. The story of three Aboriginee children in the 1930s who, when taken from their mother to a school where they will be 'educated' to 'overcome their baser instincts' instead escape and return home. Unfortunately the story is very dull. None of the three young leads shows any real charism or interest, perhaps going for a more correct method of being tired and taciturn. It's only at the beginning or end, when there are adults on screen and we see their emotions that we begin to connect. But when they are kidnapped two of the three girls practically go without struggle, by the time they reach the school-camp that should be their home for the rest of their childhood they are near mute and expressionless, needing to be instructed several times to do anything. They then run off and the best efforts of the police to recapture them come to naught.
The middle part of the film becomes a series of incidents, with the girls encountering people who either help or hinder them. But we don't build any empathy with these near mutes and the people who's path they cross don't linger on screen long enough to have an impact. The only time the film makes any real connection is when Kenneth Branagh is on screen. He plays Mr. Neville, the man responsible for control of the Aboriginal population of Australia. In several swift, economic scenes we are given the measure of the man, not some pompous goose-stepping buffoon, but a committed, caring man, who merely has the arrogance of Empire assuring him that the Aboriginees are not sub-human vermin, simply... unfortunates, unfortunate not to be good, decent God-fearing white people. But with the proper breeding plans, this can change. The film does not interest at all in the story of three girls walking thousands of miles to be reunited with their parents, it only succeeds by setting itself in opposition to what is wrong. And so a film which is little more than an hour and a half long ends up still feeling more long-winded than a film twice it's length.
How could a film which is based on a true story, which challenges the limits of human endurance, which is defined by injustice and oppression, be so very dull?
The middle part of the film becomes a series of incidents, with the girls encountering people who either help or hinder them. But we don't build any empathy with these near mutes and the people who's path they cross don't linger on screen long enough to have an impact. The only time the film makes any real connection is when Kenneth Branagh is on screen. He plays Mr. Neville, the man responsible for control of the Aboriginal population of Australia. In several swift, economic scenes we are given the measure of the man, not some pompous goose-stepping buffoon, but a committed, caring man, who merely has the arrogance of Empire assuring him that the Aboriginees are not sub-human vermin, simply... unfortunates, unfortunate not to be good, decent God-fearing white people. But with the proper breeding plans, this can change. The film does not interest at all in the story of three girls walking thousands of miles to be reunited with their parents, it only succeeds by setting itself in opposition to what is wrong. And so a film which is little more than an hour and a half long ends up still feeling more long-winded than a film twice it's length.
How could a film which is based on a true story, which challenges the limits of human endurance, which is defined by injustice and oppression, be so very dull?
