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Sundance Institute announced today the lineup of films selected to screen in the U.S. and World Cinema Dramatic and Documentary Competitions for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
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I was reminded of this article today while watching "Rabbit Proof Fence."
The film was based on an extraordinary and brutal historical event; the forced internment of mixed race aboriginal children in Australia. It was a mixture between the Great Escape and Schindler's List. For me it failed on both counts. This is not a critique of the politics, it's a critique of the storytelling.
Scenes were often jumbled together, characters were undeveloped, the antagonists were almost nonexistent, the music felt like bad Brian Eno and the first act was far too short. It felt like the white director was unable to make strong decisions in the storytelling. The responsibility for this spineless storytelling also falls on the screenwriter, also white.
Perhaps it was too heavily based on the book, or was better served by nonfiction, its original form. My other suspicion is that the production and writing were rushed or that the writer and director simply wasn't as talented as Spielberg or Lean.
