In the last couple of days I’ve actually taken the time to watch two films (something of a rare occurrence these days), one of which left me fairly unimpressed and the other with a few tears, wondering why the world is so damn unfair. In the interest of a) procrastinating going to bed and b) not posting a 5000 Question Survey instalment for a few days, I though I’d write about them.
I suck at reviews, so these are technically not reviews, ok? They’re just a jumble of thoughts regarding each. Got that? Good!
High Noon, 1952, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, directed by Fred Zinnemann.
According to the back of the DVD case, this is one of the classic Western films, and it won 4 Oscars1. Anyway, Cooper plays Will Kane, a marshal who, five years earlier, sent the town’s main trouble maker, Frank Miller, to prison. The film is set entirely on the day Kane gets hitched to Amy (Kelly). Right after their ceremony, at like 10am, the train station guy comes with a message that Frank Miller is out of Prison and coming back to town on the 12pm train. Everyone assumes he’s going to exact his revenge of Kane, with the help of three buddies. Unfortunately Kane doesn’t have any deputies and no one in town is willing to help him (all for really dumb reasons, if you ask me), so he has to go it alone. He’s all depressed about it and generally comes across as really annoying.
Long story short, Miller comes to town with his buddies and they try to kill Kane, who somehow manages to kill all but one – his new Quaker wife finally gets over her violence-phobia to pop one of them. Hurrah, Kane wins and all is joyous.
So, this film is supposed to have one of the most epic showdowns in Western film history, right? Um, no, not really. I thought it was going to be full of suspense and great action, but it really wasn’t. It was quite boring. Obviously this is because it’s 2009 and I’m used to seeing people get their heads blown off, among other things, so High Noon seemed positively docile in comparison.
I would also like to note, entirely superficially, that Gary Cooper is not handsome, Grace Kelly was unremarkable and the acting was absolutely shit. I did, however, adore Katy Jurado, who played Helen Ramirez (Kane’s ex). She was freakin’ gorgeous and feisty, unlike Kelly’s wet-blanket, Amy.
Despite its shortcummings, it was actually kind of cool, in that old Western way, you know?
1Lead actor, best editing, best music – original song, best music – scoring for comedy or drama.
Rabbit Proof Fence, 2002, starring Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan and Kenneth Branagh, directed by Phillip Noyce.
This is the film adaptation of the book Follow The Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. The story is of Garmara’s mother (Molly), aunt (Daisy) and their cousin (Gracie), three Aboriginal-white girls, who in 1931 were stolen by the Australian government1. It was believed best to integrate the “half-castes” into European culture and society with the eventual aim of “breeding the Aborigine out” after a few generations.
The girls were taken to the Moore River Native Settlement, just north of Perth, where they stayed for a little while until Molly, age 14, decided they should run away back home, 2,400km away. Despite an Aborigine tracker as well as numerous officials being sent to try and recapture the girls, they managed to evade them all. At some point they found out they could follow the rabbit-proof fence, which runs along 3,253km of Western Australia, in order to get home. So, this is what they do and for nine long weeks they girls walk. At one point the guy who is basically in charge of stealing all these kids, Mr Neville (Branagh), says to spread word that Gracie’s mother is waiting for her in the town of Wiluna, so Gracie decides to go there instead. Molly and Daisy walk on, but end up going back for Gracie, only to witness Gracie being recaptured. The two girls continue on home, eventually making it back to their mother and grandmother. The four of them immediately set out into the desert to avoid recapture.
In the epilogue it says that Molly went on to marry and had two daughters, both of whom were also stolen. At one point she managed to get one of them back and had to walk the rabbit-proof fence all over again. She never saw or heard of her other daughter again. She and Daisy appear at the end of the film but Gracie died while, I think, still a child.
All throughout watching this film I felt a deep sense of anger at the insanity of the government doing what they were doing. How could they steal people’s children??? The ignorance is so appalling . However, perhaps they really did believe what they were doing was right, that white people are somehow superior to everyone else. 
I just wanted to stamp my feet and scream at them all. These poor children being ripped from their families and put into these bloody awful camps where God knows what horrors awaited them. Then, of course, the families who have their precious children taken from them, ripped away and never seen or heard from again. I’m sitting here even now feeling so horrified and ANGRY. It’s not like this sort of thing never happens anymore, because ethnic-cleansing and other issues of racism, etc. still exist all throughout the world. It’s one of the major things that really bugs me about humanity. We’re so bloody easily locked into our little segregated groups and woe be to anyone who tries to mix that up.
So, Rabbit Proof Fence. You must see it.
1The stealing of these children actually continued until around 1970.
