Hotel Rwanda
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Movie Reviews of Hotel Rwanda
Movie Review: Rwanda 1994 - Overlooked but Never Forgotten
Summary: 5 Stars
Hotel Rwanda is one of the greatest and most touching films in recent years. It's a fantastic potrayal of the brutal ethnic cleansing that took place in Rwanda in 1994 that unfortunately never got the attention from international medias as it should have had. With this film, there is finally someone who shed some light over something that many people didn't know/care about and few have got the chance to hear about either. With this film, the truth about what actually happened in the small African Republic of Rwanda is portraited, and all in a very realistic way that touches the watcher very emotionally.
Before starting, let me just explain the history that led to this horrific event. During the colonialism, it was first a German colony and later a Belgian. There were two main ethnical groups in Rwanda, Hutu's and Tutsi's. The Hutu's were in large majority but the Europeans let the Tutsi's become the rulers cause they were taller, had smaller noses and lighter skin. For decades later, the Tutsi's would be in charge as an overclass. Things changed though when Rwanda became independent and Hutu's slowly started to demand equal rights. In 1961 the Tutsi king was overthrown by Hutu's and ever since that day, Hutu would be the new leading group in the country. Many Tutsi's were exiled and Tutsi were now second class citizens of a Hutu leading majority. But they would come back 30 years later in 1990 and they formed a rebel group called Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). They invaded the country in order to pressure the goverment to strip their second class status, the Hutu goverment thought their attemps was to restore lost hegemonies and enslave the Hutu population like in the past and the ethnic tentions would grow stronger then even before. A few years later, the Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana was killed when his airplane was shot down. The Hutu's reacted as this was a sign of war from the Tutsi rebels and responded with one of the worst ethnic cleansings in modern history, which sadly would be overlooked by the Western powers.
This film which is also based on a true story captures exactly what the western news stations and UN armies didn't and wouldn't do. Don Cheadle plays (Paul Rusesabagina) the Hutu hotel manager that lives a normal life with his Tutsi wife Titiana (Sophie Okonedo) til the slaughtering takes place. Working at the hotel he interacts with all kinds of diffrent people, European, Americans, Africans you name it, and it's difficult for Paul to imagine that when war breakes out international people escapes the country quick and few wants to help out. Nick Nolte (Colonel Oliver) and Joaquin Phoenix (Jack, the reporter) plays significant minor roles as men that both are based in the country but with limited resources to help. Paul shortly realize that he must do something by himself to save himself and others. He will help people no matter their ethnicy and shelter them at the hotel, bride generals and ty to find provisions and a way to escape from the hell that his country has became. Don Cheadle plays the role of his life and is truly fantastic as Paul. "Hotel Rwanda" is also realistic, interesting and touching. It's a somber film to watch based on all that happens but it's good that someone finally shed some light over this horrific event. "Hotel Rwanda" is a truly original film that you will recall for a very long time forward at the same time as your knowledge of the situation in Rwanda 1994 will be much clearer. See it now! It's worth the time.
Movie Review: A very sad saga of our modern times
Summary: 5 Stars
What does a commemoration placard outside the Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camps state ?? ....
...
..
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Never Again !?!?
My fellow Christians, American citizens, or citizens of a globally economic and political world. This genocide that took place in a poor central African area, called Rwanda, is a shame to us all, especially the United Nations. To the fact that we, as "post-modern," "englightened," "affluent" people allowed or stood-by watching while 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days between April and June of 1994 (according to BBC news).
This movie will not shock you right away ... as I have tried to do!
It slowly creeps in, few details here and there, subtly introduced by a clever director. This story of suffering and mass-genocide starts innocently in a country where at first it seems that two tribes can get along with each other. But ... just like in Nazi Germany ... the propaganda of hate and politics, of race/tribal-membership spread by means of mass-media, wreaked havoc in a country where the two tribes (which spoke the same language, occupied the same areas, shared the same traditions) were already segregated one above the other by their previous European colonists.
The genocide of Rwanda is told from the eyes and real-life experience of a manager (Paul Rusesabagina played by Don Cheadle) of a Belgian resort hotel in Rwanda's capital city. The movie details the experiences that Paul goes through trying to save his family and friends (who happen to carry ID cards of the hated tribe Tutsi). He uses his diplomatic and social skills to garner support from Hutus close business associates, local Belgian/UN troops, other African nations and their governments, and even the management of the hotel chain that was headquartered Brussels.
The true life-changing and life-shattering story of Paul is one of survival, of anguish and pain, or horror at seeing what was happening to his fellow countrymen, and of deep soul-searching while waiting for a response from the outside. This is not a movie that I want to see again any time soon. The memories of horrors and anguish presented are still vivid.
The cinematography is impeccable, and this real drama-style movie ends like a documentary one, with details on the historical realities of Rwanda 1994 and Paul Rusesabagina's family situation.
This movie has won the 2004 Audience, and Best Feature award at the 2004 American Film Institute. In 2005 it had three nominations at the Acadamy Awards and three nominations at the Golden Globe Awards. Another cool factoid: this movie is a Canada/United Kingdom/Italy/South Africa co-production, and the first-ever co-production between the rival independent film studios Lions Gate Films and United Artists (according to Wikipedia)
May we never again live or experience such horrors, genocides, and mass-murders as have recently happened in Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina ethnic cleansing, Sudan-Darfur debacle. Never again!
A great companion book on this subject is Philip Gourevitch, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families; Stories From Rwanda" (New York: Picador, 1998).
Movie Review: A movie about a real hero with real courage
Summary: 5 Stars
Who are your heroes? Sports figures? A president who double back flipped to get out of Vietnam and who made fun of a woman whose death sentence he signed off on BUT who struts around in a flight suit, espouses pieties like "culture of life" and wouldn't know the truth if it hit him in the nose? A former president who did his own backflipping out of Vietnam and who deserved a punch in the nose for how he treated woman, yet is praised as "progressive"?
I've got a real hero for you: Paul Rusesabagina. Everyone should get familiar with his story.
Consumed with thinking about your job? Getting jazzed about that new iPod? Reworking your budget to afford that Lexus SUV? Check out Hotel Rwanda before you do.....you might feel so ashamed at your own "problems" that you'll save yourself stress about your own life and money since you'll realize that the things you "have" to have are of little value.
You see Paul has real problems. Until early 1994 he led an upper middle class existence as the assistant manager of a four star, Belgian owned hotel in Rwanda. Paul is a fixer....he knows where to find and get the best of everything for his guests. He is smooth, poised, and well-connected.
It all comes crashing down with the start of the Rwandan genocide in April 1994. By the time if was over, nearly 1 million Tutsis were killed by Hutus....a fairly recent artificial distinction made by Belgian colonials in the 19th century.
Paul is a Hutu but his wife is Tutsi and so are many of his friends, neighbors, employees and relatives. Somehow he manages to hide 1200 of them in the hotel and try to ride out the storm with bribes, bargains, on the fly negotiations, lightning quick decisions, and unmatched courage. Several false saves raise their hopes: the UN, the arrival of European troops, exit visas for many of the families. Yet the UN troops only number 300 for the ENTIRE COUNTRY and are ordered not to fire, the European troops invade in order to rescue, well, other Europeans, and the exit visas get the families just a few miles away from the hotel before they are chased back by a Hutu mob.
While you never are exposed to the full brunt of the massacre (the movie is rated PG-13 and most of the violence is off camera and is rarely graphic) you get some measure of the horror of those living in the hotel. You also understand some of the root causes of the massacre: racial hatred, the psychosis of the mob mentality, desire to belong to a group, opportunism (want that neighbor's house? Denounce him as a Tutsi or Hutu spy), and fear of being denounced yourself if you don't join in. The movie is so disturbing on this point that you realize how fragile community can be. Under the veneer of Paul's nice neighborhood roiled issues that brought it down in flames and blood. How close is any community to a similar collapse when the right buttons are pushed?
I can't say enough about this movie....the acting, direction, and script are all excellent. The Rwandan story is one that has to be told since it's devastation ranks right up with every other act of genocide/massacre in the twentieth century. It will move you and give you perspective.
Movie Review: We Wish To Inform You....
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't write many reviews, but I felt compelled to do so after seeing this film.
What a masterful job Terry George has done in portraying the horror of life in Rwanda in 1994. Several previous reviews complained that he did not do enough to show what was really going on, as if the dearth of blood and gore somehow made the moview less realistic. I heartily disagree!
The brief glimpses into the genocide occuring make it unneccessary to bludgeon the viewer over the head with constant scenes of blood, because we already KNOW that it's happening. The intense dread is developed because Paul and people inside the hotel know that the noose is slowly drawing tighter, and that certainly sooner or later they will all have run out of options.
The most ordinary of scenes were hardest to watch-Paul having to tell his wife that she and the children must jump to their deaths rather than die at the hands of Hutu rebels and their machetes; watching a former business partner detachedly talk about how easy it will be to exterminate the rest of the Tutsi "cockroaches", unquestioning of why it should be done;and saddest of all, when Paul finally begins to lose his ability to try and stay detached after literally getting an in your face look at what is going on beyond the walls of the hotel.
Terry George is also very honest about the failures of the West to stop what was happening, and what the result is when you're not committed to stopping the atrocity unfolding before you. An earlier reviewer scoffed at the idea that forces were put on the ground in Rwanda but were unallowed to use their weapons-sadly this was in fact reality.
The horrifying notion that it simply wasn't worth it for anyone to get involved is a shame that the rest of the world must bear, and seems to be a lesson we have to learn over and over again. As I watched this film I was struck not only by the obvious parallels between it and World War II, but also between this story and what had been taking place in Yugoslavia just a year or two earlier with similar results.
Don Cheadle easily should have won the Oscar for this portrayal--it was powerful because it was so understated. It would have very easy to overplay it and wring every last bit of pathos out of it but he didn't do it. It's stark and a little chilling until you realize that Paul was using every last bit of strength and wit he possesed to simply hold onto his composure and sanity for the sake of his family and the other 1200 refugees under his protection especially when the reality that they had been more or less abandoned by the rest of the world hit home.
A fantastic, though horribly sad film. People should also check out "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" by Phillip Gouretevich for more first hand accounts of what went on in Rwanda and what was going on outside of it.
A side note to an earlier reviewer who used the space as a forum to spew his disgust over the UN and the "liberals" who love it so much--sorry fella, there's PLENTY of blame to go around, and it actually DOESN'T make what's going on in Iraq and Guantamano Bay okay.
Movie Review: Stunning and important film!
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first heard about Rwanda and the massacres in the spring of 1994, I wanted to do something about it and was horrified that America wouldn't get involved, mostly because of our bad experience in Somalia just 6 months earlier as well as still deep-rooted racism that is apparent in our media and military actions (the recent Tsunami disaster another example). Shamefully, our country (as well as Europe) views the problems of Africa and most of Asia (beyond the Middle East) as not worth much to sacrifice our lives. Because we ignored the problem and allowed the massacre of nearly a million lives, it is important to have books and movies speak out about this crisis. For that reason, I am grateful that this film was made.
Though the similarities to "Schindler's List" are apparent (like Oskar Schindler, who saved 1200 Jews from the Holocaust, Paul Rusesibagina, a Manager of the Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, managed to save 1200 Rwandans--the Tutsi minority--from being slaughtered). Paul used whatever cunning and lies he could to save his people at every little setback...which included bribery, booze, desperate calls to the Hotel chain's European financial backers, and outright lies to the Hutu General about his being on the U.S. hitlist for war crimes. This film shows that in desperate situations, situational ethics applies, as a strict moralist would likely end up dead. Using personal relationship with thugs to save lives is a lot better than any sanctimonial denouncement of the thug's behavior.
Don Cheadle is amazing in this film, as he nails the accent perfectly. The scene where he breaks down and cries after having seen the devastation of the massacre with his own eyes is heartbreaking to watch. If not for Jamie Foxx's phenomenal performance as Ray Charles, I think Don Cheadle would have deserved the Best Actor Oscar this year.
The song "Million Voices" by Wyclef Jean is a hauntingly beautiful tribute to Rwanda, as it encorporates a children's choir and relevant lyrics about the human disaster that remains part of Rwanda's historical legacy. After the Holocaust, many people vowed, "Never Again!" would they allow such genocide to take place...yet as we have seen from history, it happened in the Soviet Gulags, on the killing fields of Cambodia, in Bosnia-Hercegovina, in Rwanda, and now in Sudan. Films like these are important to bring about awareness, but in the end, its really a calling to us, daring us to take action in whatever way we can.
The DVD features a short documentary on the real Paul Rusesibagina's return to Rwanda, as we see the horrible preservation of some bodies (at first, I didn't realize I was looking at human remains...they looked like white plaster statues of stick figures). In a way, such a preservation will probably force people to remember, as the human tendency seems to be towards, "it never happened." We must remember what evil is capable of achieving...and that it was possible to slaughter half a million people by machetes alone. See this film and may it fill you with a hope to act out whenever injustice rears its ugly head, in whatever form it takes.