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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lThe long way homeRabbit-Proof Fence is "a movie with a difference," says director Phil Noyce. Garry Maddox finds out why. 15 February 2002 - An hour before the world premiere of Rabbit-Proof Fence in Sydney, the scene is nothing like the usual state of affairs for director Phil Noyce and the stars of his latest film. Instead of Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie or Sharon Stone, three shy young Aboriginal girls are sitting on a couch. Instead of edgy security guards, snappy waiters and high-gloss minders, there's an informal gathering that includes Aboriginal relatives and friends. And instead of polished patter about the film and their exciting careers, the cast have only a few shy words for the media. One interview trails off when the girls - Everlyn Sampi, 13, Laura Monaghan, 11, and Tianna Sansbury, 8 - notice a bird playing in the rain outside. Amid camera flashes the girls are waiting for the big moment. Not the walk down the red carpet but a promised meeting with Cathy Freeman, who's running late after training. When she arrives, their eyes light up and they shyly ask their own questions. "How old are you?" asks Sansbury. It's a long way from the Hollywood that Noyce left to make Rabbit-Proof Fence after such big-budget action films as Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Saint and The Bone Collector. A refreshingly long way, some would say. The film follows a remarkable real-life journey from the 1930s. Taken from their parents on the instruction of Western Australia's chief protector of Aborigines, A.O. Neville, three girls escape from a mission where they are beginning their journey to white society. To get back home, Molly (Sampi), sister Daisy (Sansbury) and cousin Gracie (Monaghan) have to cross more than 2000 kilometres of scrubby baking terrain in Western Australia along the rabbit-proof fence that divides the state, while pursued by the authorities. Noyce says it's a tale of adventure, courage and determination about three kids who, like E.T., just want to get home. But for a country still dealing with black and white relations, where Aboriginal children were still being taken from their families until 1970, it's also a moving dramatisation of a stolen generations story. No wonder there have been tissues provided at premieres around the country. All those behind the film, including writer-producer Christine Olsen, recognise how hard it is for an Aboriginal film to find a mainstream cinema audience. The last success, some say, was Jedda in the 1950s. "I sensed that this was a movie with a difference," says Noyce of his decision to make the film after withdrawing from the Hollywood thriller The Sum of All Fears. "Most movies you make, then you impose on the audience. You excite their curiosity. "I could feel in the wind that white Australia wanted a vehicle - whether it was a movie, whether it was a book or whatever - that got beyond the slogans and allowed them to come to terms with the history of race relations in this country. "What I'd hope this film might encourage is for all Australians to understand the deeply felt emotions that have fuelled some of the debates on the stolen generations issue and on reconciliation in general." The film started when Olsen, a documentary maker, was captivated by a story in the Herald about Doris Pilkington Garimara's account of her mother's epic journey across the desert with her younger sister and cousin. "It was so moving," she says. "I tore it out of the paper and stuck it with my possible ideas for features. Every now and then I'd get it out and have another cry. One day I thought, 'You've got to get the rights to that book.'" An admirer of how Noyce handled the Aboriginal characters in Backroads in the 1970s, Olsen cold-called him about making the film, initially at 3.30am in Los Angeles when she'd mixed up the time difference. He thought she was crazy but suggested she call his office in the morning. Months later, frustrated that he'd been too busy to give the script the attention it deserved, she tracked him down in a Sydney hotel while he was promoting The Bone Collector. She sent him the latest version. Noyce was moved by what he read, had that long-delayed meeting with Olsen, then sent her some script notes. "I began to understand that those big directors have several projects on the go," Olsen says. "But I thought there was a particular timing for this one. I didn't want it to be one of those projects he might eventually get around to. It had to be made." Noyce had The Sum of All Fears and The Quiet American lined up but Olsen kept pushing: "I said, 'This film can't wait for you.' He gave me this look. I don't think anyone talks to him like that. "About three weeks later, I got a phone call. He was getting out of a taxi in New York. He said, 'Get that ending fixed up and we'll make that film this year.'" After more intensive script work and some rapid financing, which reflects Noyce's moneymaking cachet in Hollywood, the search began for the three girls at the centre of the film. The film-makers saw 1500 kids in some of the most remote parts of the country. Noyce says: "There's a lot of good kids out there but finally we had to find kids that you'd believe were related and complemented each other as a threesome. "That was the hard part." The three girls came from distant regions. Sampi was from a small community outside Broome, Monaghan was from Port Hedland and Sansbury from Adelaide. Kenneth Branagh agreed to play A.O. Neville and, in a reminder of Walkabout in the 1970s, David Gulpilil would be a tracker. Then came the challenge of working with untrained and spirited actors who had no particular ambitions to appear in a film. One girl dropped out and had to be replaced. Another ran away, which Noyce says made him feel like A.O. Neville, rounding her up for her own good. The director saw his role as being a medium for storyteller Pilkington Garimara as well as Molly and Daisy, who still live in Western Australia. Even before the film's premiere, they had a moving outback screening. "Inevitably, as a white male, you're going to impose a different perspective on their story," Noyce says. "The biggest challenge was to resist that - to constantly act as a medium by consulting, by talking with them, by trying to feel what they felt." Coaching the natural and moving performances from the girls was a sleight-of-hand operation. "When they did their close-ups, the kids were mostly acting to me because I was able to best direct them by saying the lines opposite them," he says. "But when it's cut together, of course, it appears as though they're talking to each other. It just reveals how much make-believe there is in every movie. "We might use a 10-minute roll of film just to get three or four responses from each of the children, whereas an actor like Denzel Washington gives you one version, then another, then another and he's continuously in that reality. Yet, in the end, you're only going to use a piece of this take and a piece of that take even from the best of actors. These kids only had to get it right once." The softly spoken Sampi says some parts were fun. "Some parts were hard because when we do it once, they tell us to do it again. And again. And again. Until I get really angry and tired." It was an experience that seemed worlds away from a film such as Clear and Present Danger, which cost $US64 million ($126 million) compared with Rabbit-Proof Fence's $10.5 million. "On those big movies, you're directing traffic," Noyce says. "There are so many people and frequently so many units working. You might have a second unit, an aerials unit and a miniature unit as well as your own team with the major actors. So you really are a general attempting to keep up communications with your lieutenants and sergeants who are working for you. "On this film, we had a second unit under Ian Jones who was constantly working with doubles, particularly at dawn and dusk to get them walking across the desert and so on. But it was a much more one-on-one intimate affair. My relationship with each of those kids was crucial." It was also a remarkably personal story for the other Aboriginal actors on the film. Says Olsen: "Every single person in our cast has had a family member taken." Clip from The Sydney Morning Herald
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