Links to other articles:
Raw Material, theage.com.au, 1 February 2002
Film Forces Australia to Face Its Cruel Past, The Observer, 10 February 2002
An Interview with Philip Noyce, Urbancinefile.com, February 2002
Noyce's 'Fence' Corrals Brave Aussie Tykes , Reuters/Variety, 20 February 2002
Walkabout to Freedom, The Observer, 27 October 2002 |
Kenneth Branagh snippets from Rabbit-Proof Fence Reviews
From The Mail on Sunday, 10 November 2002
Matthew Bond
"November has clearly been decreed Kenneth Branagh month. Next weekend he'll be all sweeping robes and towering vanity as the flamboyant Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. But this week, in the unpromisingly title but stunningly effective Australian film Rabbit-Proof Fence, he serves up a quiet reminder of what a superb actor he can be. But although the children of the Moore River Native Settlement call (Neville) Mr Devil, thanks to Branagh and Noyce that is never how we think of him. He's a meticulous but misguided bureaucrat who sees nothing strange about his position as legal guardian to ever young Aborigine in the state."
From the Sunday Express, 10 November 2002
Henry Fitzherbert
"By coincidence the week brings another movie in which Kenneth Branagh acts alongside a trio of children. But what a contrast. This is a heartbreaking true story that will have you screaming at the injustice meted out to Aborigines in Australia. Branagh proves his versatility playing AO Neville, British Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia in the Thirties. Neville is no colonial caricature, however, but a man convinced he is doing the right thing."
From The Observer, 10 November 2002
Philip French
"There is also a chilling performance by Kenneth Branagh as A.O. Neville, the chief protector of Aborigines for Western Australian, who goes about his business with the detached thoroughness of the character called 'The Jew Detector' in Max Frisch's play Andorra."
From The Sunday Telegraph, 10 November 2002
Jenny McCartney
"Kenneth Branagh gives a finely-judged performance as Neville. Obsessed by the racial theories of the era, and believing that he is 'helping' haslf-caste children, Neville seems blind to the inhumanity of his actions. This works well in the film, which would have been unbalanced by the presence of a crude villain."
From The Independent on Sunday, 10 November 2002
Nicholas Barber
"Last year in The Conspiracy (sic), Kenneth Branagh played Rienhard Heydrich, the SS officer who pushed through the Final Solution at the Wannsee Conference. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, Branagh is back as A O Neville, a British-born official who was Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia between 1915 abd 1940. Shockingly, there are parallels between the men. Branagh plays the eugenicist as a headmasterly bureaucrat, certain that he's acting in everyone's best interests, even as he refuses to let one aborigine buy new shoes and refuses to let another, who is 'becoming quite agitated' see her daughter. It's such a tantalising portrait that we want to know more about him."
(All above, thanks Catherine)
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