In this paper I’, going to analyze a scene from ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’. And the scene I’m doing is ‘the fair one’, which indicates the white superiority in the mission.
The scene starts with a long shot of children singing Mr. Neville’s favorite Christian song, while Mr. Neville was sitting on the chair, and in contrast, the children was sitting on the ground. The children had a bad pitch and rhythm, showing their lack of enthusiasm as they were forced to sing just because Mr. Neville liked it. From this scene, Phillip Noyce criticized the cruel reality of the mission under its lovely veil, revealing the white colonialists’ oppression of the aboriginal culture. They think they are superior to aboriginal.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
The camera then switches to the children sitting on the floor, looking bored and confused of what they’re doing.
Straight after the scene of Mr. Neville smiling and clapping, there’s a medium-close up of Molly, Gracie and Daisy, looking sad and questioned. Phillip Noyce used this camera shot to let the audience focus on the three main character’s facial expression, moreover, make contrast with Mr. Neville’s facial expression, criticizing how they don’t understand and don’t want to understand what the kids really wants.
The kid looks scared and nervous, although Mr. Neville is comforting him verbally, his action towards the boy shows his real thoughts. He didn’t ask the boy if it’s ok to take off his clothes, and even when the boy was scared and was trying to run away from him, he didn’t become gentler, but instead, he harshly dragged the boy back to him, reflecting the lack of compassion shown toward the indigenous community by the authorities.
When Molly was called up, she looked scared and nervous, Daisy tried to follow her, but was being told to sit down mercilessly. One key theme in this scene is separation. We see this happening when Molly was called up to have her skin checked by Mr. Neville. Daisy and Gracie were trying to follow Molly because they were scared and felling insecure without Molly.
This scene is shown from Molly's perspective. We see the camera is angled at Molly's eye level when she is walking up to get her skin checked. The camera used point of view angle to show the view of Molly, so we can put ourselves into Molly’s shoes and therefore understand her emotion more. The shaking camera shows how Molly is feeling insecure and scared, while the slower motion shows how Molly is hesitating whether if she should go to the front. There’s only noise of bugs in the background, emphasizing the tenseness of the situation and make contrast with how the kids didn’t talk at all. Mr. Neville’s face gets closer and closer to the camera, which creates tension. This scene used high angle shot to show how Molly is like in Mr. Neville’s view. From Molly’s facial expression, we can tell that she isn’t concentrated on what Mr. Neville is saying and is feeling uncomfortable. The bright lighting also contrasts with the children’s negative feeling. This scene displays the repressed atmosphere of the mission, also connects with the Molly’s escape scene.
In this scene we see a lot of camera angles from a person's perspective. This makes the audience feel that they are a part of the scene. This is a point of view shot the film maker decided to use. The film maker also decided to use a tracking dolly shot from the child's perspective. This also makes us feel that we are following the child towards Mr. Neville.
In this scene Phillip Noyce criticized how people in that time judged a person by the color of their skin. The government thought more highly of a white person and disrespected the rights of people of natural color. They wanted to drain the color out of the future generations so the community of Australian will follow white culture.
The director has displayed the perspective of half-cast Aboriginals real experience which has emotional effects so you can see and feel what these young kids had to go through.
Stuck on your essay?
