Rabbit Proof Fence Themes

In Philip Noyce’s acclaimed film, Rabbit-Proof Fence, a major theme that develops throughout the story is the struggle for survival that Molly, Daisy and Gracie had to endure. The girls face many trials in their fight for life, however their struggles are never more clearly portrayed than in three carefully constructed scenes. The girls struggle to survive the desert landscape is displayed clearly when Gracie leaves Molly and Daisy to go find her mother and the other girls are silhouetted against the landscape. Molly’s fight to retain her culture is demonstrated in their first meal at Moore River, when the children stay standing for prayers, and finally, the children’s struggle to retain their identity and not conform to the white’s half caste …show more content…
The warring of the two cultures of each of these separate groups are never more clearly captured than in the scene of the girls first meal at Moore River. Noyce clearly contrasts Molly, Daisy and Gracie from their peers, by not only having them be the only children not to stand and pray, yet also by ensuring they wear tan clothes in comparison to the other children’s whites. The camera angle ensures that we can see them next to the other children and makes sure that we can see just how different they are from the others. The camera angle also helps the viewer to see the girls utter bewilderment at their peers behaviour and how both Daisy and Gracie look to Molly for direction and guidance, showing just how much they see Molly as their leader. The audience is also encouraged to note how the other children simply look forward, offering no direction or instructions to the newcomers and no argument to the prayers, which surely must be foreign to at least some of them. This may be meant to symbolise how many of the children were either to scared to fight back or had simply given in to the apparent hopelessness of their situation. The lighting within the room would surely be quite dark, as the small lights above seem to offer little luminosity. This could mean that the camera had been set up with a strong light behind it, to ensure that the children’s expressions could be clearly viewed. The silence in the scene serves to amplify the children’s confusion and the eerily unnatural feeling of a room of people being completely and utterly silent. This scene is one of the most memorable and haunting scenes throughout the entire movie, with it’s clever use of elements and obvious display of clashing cultures, it is clear to see how the children truly struggled for the survival of their