Seeing a Movie Through Your Ears

Whenever I find myself at home in San Francisco, my wife Jane and I do our best to catch up on the newest movies. Last year at the end of the year we took great delight in seeing the blockbusters that came out at Christmas time. There was the new Star Trek movie, Nemesis, as well as Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, and Catch Me If You Can, to name a few.

But the film that most intrigued me was a little Australian film called Rabbit-Proof Fence. This magnificent movie documents the thousand-mile walking journey undertaken by three young Australian girls to find home and mother. These three girls possessed an ethnic heritage that was part Aboriginal and part Anglo. Until the 1970s it was the government's policy to place such children in special schools where they could learn domestic skills and receive other low-level employment training. The notion was that since they were part Anglo the government had a responsibility toward them.

The three girls in this film are miserable in that special school. One day they embark on the journey home-a thousand miles across rough terrain, much of it desert, sometimes only a few hundred feet from being caught.

The story is heart-warming and inspiring, but for me the other exciting dimension was its sound track. I don't remember when I have heard surround sound used so well for a music track. The music came from everywhere in much the same way it does in an Imax production, and we felt in the musical texture the broad expanse of land, the wide open plain, miles and miles of nothing but Outback.

In addition to the music, the natural sounds were a delight, for they were so well recorded that one could hear every nuance. The singing of the birds, the water flowing in the river, the pelting of the rain on the ground, the far-away sound of other animals-all these were portrayed with a clarity that thrilled me. I felt as if I was able to see the landscape through my ears. That doesn't happen to me very often. I don't know whether or not the brilliance of the sound track will come off on a home video, but I know in a good theater it works amazingly well.

How fortunate are those who long for freedom, who long for home, who long for mother, who hunger for the right, and who will not rest until those longings are satisfied! If you have a chance to see Rabbit-Proof Fence, try a little of it with your eyes closed. You'll be amazed at how much you can see through your ears.