I saw this movie on True Stories this weekend, and I was rapt.
It’s the story, of how in the 1930s, the Australian government decided to “civilize” half-caste aborigine children by taking them from their mothers and raising them in internment camps. Three girl, Molly, Daisy, and Gracie, were taken from Jigalong to the Moore River camp, 1200 miles away.
The three girls escaped, and by following the rabbit-proof fence, made their way home. Gracie was recaptured along the way, but Molly and Daisy made it home.
Does anyone have any more information about the girls? I was unable to read the “afterword” credits at the end due to my VCR screwing up. I knew that Molly married, had two girls, was captured again, and escaped again, but ultimately one of her daughters was kidnapped and she never saw her again.
What happened to Neville? How and when was this policy finally repealed? How was this movie received in Australia? How many children were taken? How many were returned to their families? What happened to the ones who never returned home? Any information on this subject would be helpful.
(BTW, I’m not in any way slamming Australia. I know the US did something similar to the native Americans, but, to my knowledge, no one has made a movie about it yet.)
It’s as closely related to the truth as many other “Based on actual events” movies are.
Read the book for a more accurate idea of what happened, and remember that after watching the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence for the first time, the real Molly Craig said “That’s not my story”.
Probably the best lead male performance I’ve seen this year was from David Gulpilil in The Tracker, who also memorably plays the tracker in RPF and was in perhaps the best movie ever to emerge from Down Under: Nic Roeg’s 1971 Walkabout. It’s been gratifying to see he’s been able to sustain a career and age quite gracefully as well.
Glad you liked the film–it’s most powerful when simply dealing with the scale of the girls’ journey (as opposed to the grating, hammy Ken Branagh business). This was also the first film score we’ve heard from Peter Gabriel in a while, and it makes you wish he did them more often.
Director Phillip Noyce had an intriguing 1-2 in 2002, what with both RPF and The Quiet American (with an exceptional Michael Caine), both provocative, exotic, political films–a rarity in today’s movie landscape.
It’s not like she was talking about “Glory” and telling us “the north won”.
I saw the movie and had never heard about this program of “education” before or the story of these three little kids. It’s part of the drama whether they get caught or get away, and I think that should probably be boxed.
Simple rule for disclosing the result of ANY movie: “err on the side of caution”. It’s 19 keystrokes to add a spoiler box.
Even if you’ve never heard of the Stolen Generation, it’s pretty hard to ignore the subtitle “The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time.” :dubious:
I can’t believe in 2001 that the Australian gov’t representative was still trying to justify their actions.
Was there any proof these half-caste children were not wanted by their clans or tribes or what have you?
Trunk, I apologize if you were upset by my lack of spoiler. I figured since this was such an obscure film, no one would know what RPF referred to unless they’d seen the movie.
It happened in 1931 and you hadn’t heard about it? Perhaps you should read more. I hardly read anything other than the SDMB and Reader’s Digest these days and even I heard about Molly Craig and her sisters.
I heard about this film and wanted to see it. I had completely forgotten about till I read this thread (I opened it 'cause I thought it was about fencing. My wife made me build about 100 miles of the shit and thought I could add something).
It occurs to me that I haven’t seen a “bad” film from down under. Guess I should make an effort to catch this one.
Hey, I’m pretty well read, and I never heard about it until I read Ebert’s review of the movie when it was first released in the States. And I don’t think I’ve heard anything about it since. If I hadn’t checked Ebert’s website that week, I’d’ve been as in the dark as Trunk.
I don’t personally care too much about being spoiled, but a lot of other people do. If you’re going to give away the ending of a movie, especially one that’s somewhat obscure, it should be boxed or contain a spoiler warning in the thread title. It’s just common courtesy.
Since I’m not sure how much of the OP should be in spoiler box, and since others have quoted from the OP liberally, I don’t feel able to put spoiler boxes into the thread. Instead, I’ve added the “Spoilers!” label to the thread title. That sufficient?
Well, for what it’s worth, I believe they’re still trying to justify them so that they don’t have to formally apologise for a previous generations actions, which would mean that they feel they’re responsible and would have to pay out a whole lot of compensation. I mean, sure, it wasn’t nice at all what we did.
And not to sound racist, but native Australians get a bit too much welfare as it is. I think it should be equal, I don’t see the point of singling them out. It seems on every form you fill in these days it asks you if you’re Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. And it’s just feeding a huge welfare dependence loop. But that’s just my $0.02
It is interesting to note that Doris Pilkington Garamara who wrote the book that became the movie is the daughter of Molly. She was taken from her parents under the same legislation that allowed her mother and aunts to be taken. Unlike her older relatives she ended up an educated woman able to tell her mother’s story. At the time of the movies release in Australia members of the family of the government official involved denied that his motives were anything but humanitarian. They insist that he believed he was saving the children from death by neglect.