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About Rabbit-Proof Fence

Once upon a time, in a chapter of history that gets discussed less than you might think, the Australian government had a policy of taking mixed-race Aboriginal children from their homes and sending them to remote internment camps. They were the 'stolen generations', trained in the way of white propriety and often then given to white families. When did this happen? From the late 1930s to the mid-1970s.

"Rabbit-Proof Fence" opened in Australia in February 2002. The film tells the true story of three preteen girls, played by Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury and Laura Monaghan, who were forcibly taken from their settlement in 1931. One of them, the strong one, whose gaze into the distance never faltered and who would not let her sisters submit, led them to escape from the place they were taken. The girls ended up walking more than a thousand miles back home, evading pursuers and using the long fence of the title as their only road map.

The movie opens with the children being captured, in a scene that inspires primal reactions, as we watch these kids screaming, protesting, reaching for their mother and clawing to break free in every which way. When it moves on to showing the long walk home, it is blank, hot, dry and tiring, both for the characters and for us, but it is anything but boring. We have had such a fundamental shock at the beginning of the story that we can feel the call of home, and there is an underlying yearning for it in every scene. There's a grounded human core to the material coming from Sampi, Sansbury and Monaghan -- they're traditional Aborigine girls who had never even been to a cinema before being cast in this film, and they give performances of unforced strength and absolute conviction.

There's also a villain, a bureaucrat played by Kenneth Branagh who goes by the name of Neville but is known to most as 'Devil'. The screenplay gives this character a creepy amount of depth: He is not a cruel man, but a fatally misguided one, who thinks of himself as a visionary, doing lesser races some good by planning to breed out their blood and make his country white and pure. Branagh's performance is much like his work as the SS General in the powerful TV movie "Conpiracy", where he sat at a boardroom table and clinically detailed the Final Solution. Here, the actor is framed from beneath, in shots of darkness that don't care how obviously they make him look looming and sinister. The writing is a reminder that evil can come from people who think they are doing the right thing; the filmmaking is like a refusal to forget that the end result is wretched.

I mentioned this to the director, Phillip Noyce, after seeing "Rabbit-Proof Fence" at this year's Telluride Film Festival. I told him that his movie was anything but subtle, and yet he did a terrific job with it, and by the end I was sobbing like a baby. Noyce smiled with the recognition of a man who had been told the same thing before: His movie is powerful not because it takes the art of drama to exquisite new forms of exploration, but because it plays like two fingers up at a shameful chapter in recent Antipodean times, at those responsible and at the way it has all been forgotten, while doing respectful justice to the descendants of the victims.

About A MOST SERIOUS OFFENCE

Have a look at the exercises in the workbook: p.17/18 and 19

WEEK 3

On tuesday, you'll work on Summerhill again. Those who were in the multimedia room last week will remain with Tyler and work on a document dealing with boarding schools. The others will record themselves in logolab and give their views about Summerhill. They'll also be able to visit the school's website. On thursday and friday, we'll go on with our work on A most serious offence p. 36 Have a good week!

WEEK 2

We kept working on Summerhill. I gave you a little test about the passive forms dealing with Summerhill. Here it is: 1ES SUMMERHILL Follow-up work Write a few passive sentences about Summerhill. Summerhill / to found or to create ./. Creativity / to stifle ./. self-expression /to curtail ./. Children / to raise ./. Underline the passive forms in the following quotations about Summerhill. “A Special Meeting can be called any time of the day or night if the chairman agrees — it's always called a chairman, even though it can be a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. A Special Meeting is called if there's an issue of particular importance that needs to be dealt with immediately.” “Children are freed from the fear of failure, and the fear of displeasing adults.” “Once I was brought up at Tribunal because I was late to my lessons.” “This is a decision that's not taken lightly at all. Lots of privileges are removed from you: you're not allowed to go out of the school, not allowed to speak in the meeting, there are certain other things you're not allowed to do, and you can also be banned from going to certain areas.” Translate: C’est fait. Ce sera fait C’était fait. Cela peut être fait. Ça pourrait être fait. Cela doit être fait. Cela a dû être fait. ........................................................................................................................... Unfortunately, most of you failed this test. You must revise it, do it again and again until it seems very simple to you. We introduced the next document: A Most Serious Offence. p.36 This text deals with Australia and the aborigenes. Australians, nicknamed Aussies are rarely in the news. A mute country as some have called it. Well, do you know its capital city?

GOOD NEWS oral expression

Your recordings are very encouraging. I believe that all the pupils were willing to do their best and that they will benefit from this positive attitude.

1/2 WEEK 1*

Summerhill: Imagine a school . . . where kids have freedom to be themselves . . . where success is not defined by academic achievement . . . where who you are is more important than what you know . . . where the whole school deals democratically with issues such as bullying and racism . . . with each individual having an equal right to be heard . . . where creativity is not stifled by pressure and self-expression is not curtailed by comformity . . . where teachers and pupils have equal status . . . additional homework Hi everyone! (...?) You may want to go to this site http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/pages/ and click on THE MEETING on the left column. If you describe it to the class, or explain the different roles of attendants, you may get a GG... See you on thursday. We'll work on the passive forms. It would be a good idea to write a few of them about Summerhill. (Summerhill / to found or to create ./. Creativity / to stifle ./. self-expression /to curtail ./. Children / to raise ./. ad lib)