Review of Rabbit-Proof Fence

Near the end of the 1995 documentary, "Anne Frank: Remembered," there's a two-second clip of Anne Frank--1943, '44, something like that, six months or so before she and her family went into hiding. A wedding was being filmed by someone with an early home movie camera. After taking some shots of the bride and groom in the street, the camera pans up to get a shot of some spectators looking down from the balcony of their apartment at the wedding party below. There is a young girl leaning over the railing of the balcony; we barely get a glimpse of her. She quickly turns her head and goes back into the apartment. They slow the film down and play it back. And it's Anne Frank. Motion picture footage of Anne Frank. The real person.

That was the most powerful and emotionally profound moment I've experienced watching a film. I totally lost it when they showed that two-second clip of Anne Frank. It cut me half. There was no denying that what I had just seen in the previous 100 minutes of the documentary was real. It hit me so hard I couldn't talk about it for weeks afterwards. And I can still get choked up trying to talk about.

"Rabbit-Proof Fence" has a moment like that. For me, not as powerful as that moment of seeing Anne Frank, but for some people it will be. And if for nothing else but that moment, that possibility, I have to recommend this film. Deeply moving.

Entertaining and enlightening.