"Echoes Across the Flats": Storytelling and Phillip Noyce's "Rabbit Proof Fence" (2002)

This essay argues that Phillip Noyce's film Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) uses storytelling, including a classic fairy tale structure, to highlight the importance of the living body, especially the voice, to social relations, communication to the understandings of cultural difference. Through story, Rabbit Proof Fence teaches the importance of speaking and listening. By privileging Aboriginal voices and attempting to identify with an indigenous view, the film challenges those classifications systems and knowledge structures which informed government policies and have assisted in the oppression and fragmentation of Aboriginal culture.