Rabbit Proof Fence

Maps call the area of Western Australia, that Molly, Daisy and Gracie traversed, desert and grassland. The topography of the desert reminded me of the South West United States. Vegetation was scraggly looking, and was similar to Arizona, but hillier. The grasslands, which rolled on with gentle slopes, reminded me of areas I've driven through in Idaho in Wyoming. For the most part though, it was difficult to get a grasp on the terrain of Australia. For a while they would be stomping through trees and lush grass growing near a stream, and then it would be continious grasslands, followed finally by arid desert flats. This movie is more difficult to describe than the others since there is no central location for the charecters to inhabit. Each scene is a new place.
Geography and the progession of the movie are tied together. The movie is a story about 3 girls walking from Southwest australia to Northern Australia. The girls follow the fence that plows through the landscape. As Neville tracks them, he looks at an Australian map with the 3 rabbit fences detailed on it. The entire movie is focused on location, tracking, cities, and distances. The plot focuses on each charecter and how they interact with the landscape. To the girls the land is something that seperates them from their mother. To the tracker the land is a means of acquiring wealth, his knowledge of it is what gets him money, and possibly his child back. For Neville, in this movie, he views the land as a sort of strategic aboriginal Where's Waldo game. The movie shifts from the perspectives and locations of each of these main charecters, but everything is united by the slow progression of 3 children across a desert.
This movie gets some people angry. Others think it is a dramatic and historic portrait of the racist injustices done by the Australian Government against the Aboriginies. Colonial forces make the lives of the native inhabitant horrible. White people on boats are responsible for the deaths of millions world wide. We all have read and know about that. But as history creeps into the present, the crimes of today are not looked at in the same way. Was Neville a racist, or as some writers on the internet say, beloved by the aboriginees. It was the 1930s, Neville was in charge of enforcing the Australian Government's control over the native population. Realistically, this movie is overly dramatic, and portrays the white charecters as one dimensional. Was Neville a racist, probably, but I doubt that he acted like he was shown in the movie. Did he like cricket, could he play a mean saxophone? There has got to be something more to him than was portrayed. Even Kim Jong Il (a pretty terrible person) enjoys a good movie every now and then. In The Rabbit proof fence even the nuns are jerks. There are debates about the historical accuracy of this movie. But really, though the quantity of forced family seperation is debatable, the fact that it happened is less so. Awful things happened to the aboriginees. There are policies of the federal government against this group that are available for anyone to look up. I think why this movie stirs controversy though, is because even if it is showing actual historical happenings, and the lives of real people, it does so at the expense of creating characatures of the bad guys. The debate goes on as to how involved the Australian government should be involved in Aboriginee affairs. Part of the debate by Australians would likely come from guilt, but another part arises on what is the proper way to raise a family. Aborignees and the Australian Government don't see eye to eye. This conflict will continue. In the future, when past historical autrocities don't sting so hard, a more accurate picture of what is happening in Australia will emerge. For know we get some of the story, but a complete understanding at present time seems unattainable.