FENCES

Prompted by references on the Blink website, I have recently viewed the film Rabbit-Proof Fence and it’s theme has now been instantly suggested to me by Frank TALKER’s image of ‘dark purlieus’ within the racist psyche (see Frank TALKER comment, 13.04.05 http://www.blink.org.uk/feedback.asp?key=5990). Being a huge Ingmar Bergman fan, I naturally enjoyed this film’s scenes of wild windswept grassy plains, the latent leporine symbolism and the tense psychological drama! However, the most impressive aspect of the movie was its beautifully blatant and simple symbolism - which was right down this rabbit’s rambling intellectual warren! I was especially struck by the way the thought-sequestrating reason-proof fence, which, in the racist mind, divided Aboriginal from European, was outwardly expressed by the attempted creation of a culturally asphyxiating human-proof fence, which was intended to prevent the communicative free-flow of life-enhancing human intercourse. Inspiringly, though, this story describes how the vision of two committed children extended far farther than the range of this fearful Fence of Futility - such that they outflanked the reach of its unrealistic ambition. Accordingly, I would prescribe Rabbit-Proof Fence as a welcome antidote to the pervading toxic futility of the film Walkabout.

Urgent to emulate the former German oblivion to the function of the Konzentrationslager, we in the UK are also building fences behind which we are increasingly reluctant to let our conscience venture.