Page Turners – December 2024 review

About a year ago the Page Turners read ‘Rabbit Proof Fence‘ by Doris Pilkington. This book, published in 1996, is an account of the experiences of an Indigenous Australian family. During the early 20th century mixed-race children were forcibly removed from their families and taken for schooling to make them more like white people. The book tells of three young girls (one of whom is the author’s mother) who escaped from the government settlement in 1931 and trekked over 1600 kilometres (990 miles) home by following the rabbit-proof fence, a massive pest-exclusion fence that crossed Western Australia from north to south. During their long journey they survived on everything from emus to feral cats, while narrowly avoiding the police, professional trackers and hostile white settlers.

We said – ‘the book was made into a film starring Kenneth Branagh which has been enjoyed by one member and we agreed that we would like to try to find a way to see this’. Well in December, when we needed to move our meeting date earlier to avoid the festive celebrations, we finally got round to watching the DVD. We had not enjoyed the writing style of the book which did not have the detail and description that would have helped draw us into the story and engage us with the characters. However the film made up for this. Seeing the landscape through which the girls trekked really brought home to us the enormity of their mission. We were horrified anew by the arrogance of the British who thought they needed to ‘educate’ the indigenous people although we acknowledge that it is always difficult when judging the actions of the past by modern standards.

We all enjoyed our afternoon watching this film but will look forward to returning to reading next month.

Deborah