Hotel Rwanda
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Movie Reviews of Hotel Rwanda
Movie Review: Human Strength, Human Weakness
Summary: 5 Stars
I was ten when the genocide in Rwanda happened, and to this day I still can't remember ever hearing about it until some years later (I think it was two or three years later when I was taught by a history teacher that the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda was one of the worst genocides since the Holocaust). That should tell you how bad it was, that schools would only talk about it as a secondary item to something history deems more important. In fact, Waco was given more attention than the murder of more than 1,000,000 million people. It's sad, to think about this now and realize how misinformed as a country we had been.
Thankfully, there are people out there who feel a certain obligation to make us know what had happened to the poor people of Rwanda. Hotel Rwanda, and plenty of other movies and books dealing with the Rwanda Genocide, came out recently and started to finally shed some light on this event. Though it took ten years, we are now finally getting to chance to understand.
Hotel Rwanda is very much like the movie Schindler's List. It's about a real man who is forced to act, put into a situation where he became the protector of the people of his country. Paul Rusesabagina is the manager of a four star hotel who, when his world breaks apart because of hatred and civil war, takes on some pretty severe responsibilities simply because he was the only one who could, as the entire world has backed itself out of the conflict in Rwanda. Though a realistic thinker, he's also a man of high morals, and gives everything up--money, possibly his job, even his self-respect--to save those who come asking for his help. Using his influence and his intelligence, he finds ways to continually keep the Hutu militia from his hotel. But soon, it becomes an impossible task, and he must think about leaving the hotel. With little outside help (only a small force of UN officers and the Red Cross) he attempts to take that next step.
The character of Paul Rusesabagina is played by Don Cheadle, one of the finer actors of today, and his presence in this movie is felt in absolutely every scene. He plays Paul as a silent and cunning man who looks at his Hutu heritage as if it were a hated middle name, something easily passed over. He knows how to work those around him, and understands more than most that the world revolves around money and bribery, and is more than willing to use this to save those around him. He chooses to be a caring human before saving his own self-respect, and this is what makes the character of Paul so special, both real and in the movie.
Though I usually cringe when recommending movies of this nature (something about historical movies always tend to twist the events to serve the needs of entertainment) I don't do so with Hotel Rwanda. I'd recommend this movie to anyone, and in fact I wish everyone could see this movie. It's equally as important as Schindler's List. It's a story of human strength and human weakness all in one, and makes a strong distinction between the two. Hint, the people with the guns and the power aren't necessarily strong.
Movie Review: "I promise to tell your story"
Summary: 5 Stars
With these words written on a visitors' log in a memorial site in Rwanda, the reason for making this stunning film is posed. HOTEL RWANDA is not only a well written (Keir Pearson), well directed (Terry George), well acted (entire cast) work of cinematic history, it serves as a thunderingly loud announcement of how the world ignored the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Africa - a country whose only exports are tea and coffee and therefore not high on the agendas of importance of the other nations of the world. HOTEL RWANDA brings us the realization that there are many unreported acts of inhumanity that never reach our television or radio or newspapers. How many of us knew about this incident before now?
But this well-crafted film is all the more poignant because it focuses on the quiet heroism of one elegant, enlightened hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) and his response to the Tutsi rebel uprising that resulted in the slaughter of over a million people, and for what reason? Going back to the time when Belgium 'owned' the country they divided the people into the Tutsi and Hutu categories based on skin color, nasal width and other absurd parameters. With Belgium's exit the two parties were placed in delicate balance and long years of struggle for control resulted in the 1994 disaster.
The senselessness of the genocide is shown by the selection of victims for which the Tutsi rebels depended on registration cards to identify Tutsis from Hutus: in reality the people had intermarried - even Hutu Paul was married to Tutsi Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) - so that the killings were wholly irrational. Given this madness, Paul struggles with the insurgency and gives shelter to as many people as he can squeeze into his hotel, refugees including orphan Tutsis, hotel staff, and friends and fellow countrymen in need of a Gilead. All of this is happening while the United Nations contingency led by Col. Oliver (Nick Nolte) is impotent and the outside reporters such as Jack Daglich (Joaquin Phoenix) grab footage of the slaughter and flee to safety. Only a Red Cross nurse Pat Archer (Cara Seymour) remains to assist in any way she can. Paul attempts to contact the outside world through his employer Mr. Tillens (Jean Reno) of the Belgian Sabena Airlines, but the world refuses to recognize the reality of Paul's plight in saving his countrymen.
The cast is exceptional: Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo are brilliant in their roles and the supporting cast is superb. The DVD opens with a statement from Don Cheadle the actor, the movie unfolds, and the remainder of the CD includes 'the making of' sequences and historical segments that for once are not self-serving aggrandizement, but sensitively informing pleas for understanding and digestion of a genocide that was ignored. This is a powerful film that deals with an atrocity without electing to lambaste the viewer with gore: the message is more powerful for its understatement. Grady Harp, April 05
Movie Review: family
Summary: 5 Stars
Hotel Rwanda shatters complacency, so long as - in the words of Nick Nolte's UN coronel - we don't 'gasp and then turn back to eating dinner'.
Don Cheadle turns in a memorable if unpolished star turn that anchors this survival tale.
That's precisely what Hotel Rwanda is: a survival tale. A true one, to be sure, and not unlike many that remain unrecorded and unthanked because their own heros perished among the million corpses left behind by this most inexplicable genocide.
I use the term inexplicable advisedly. Hotel Rwanda movingly registers the uncommon heroism and presence of mind by which 1200 of them survived. What it does not attempt to do is to explain the causes of the tribalism that turns neighbor against neighbor in places like Rwanda, Bosnia, and - dare I say it - Indianapolis?
That's a far different story, and one that is receiving careful attention from friends like Dr. Abel N'jerareou, living practically next door to Rwanda in Francophone Africa.
We are all tribalists at the core, an almost hard-wired instinct that becomes lethal over and over again when the family tribe upon which we settle our hunger proves too small for the design. Hotel Rwanda alludes to the same when 'family' becomes the explanation for doing nothing as the first neighbors are hauled off screaming and bloodied into the night.
Might tribalism also go some way toward explaining why nations that have the power to intervene in episodes of genocide so seldom do so? Even that amalgam of nations so easily charged with the role of international sheriff that we call the United (sic) Nations?
When the mostly white Europeans are escorted out of the Hôtel des Mille Collines by rescuing forces and Nick Nolte's idiosyncratically but powerfuly performed UN coronel asks for something strong at the bar and levels with Don Cheadle's hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina 'these people are not here for you', one realizes anew that tribalism is not an African phemonenon.
Critics of armed intervention except in the most extreme cases (a definition convenient enough to fairly never occur) do well to consider whether chaos is a force that - once loosed and allowed to run wild - can ever be contained to those populations where it first gains its grip.
Hotel Rwanda reminds its living-room viewer that there is evil and that it kills men, women, and children fairly indiscriminately. To say nothing of red and yellow, black and white.
The nation of Rwanda is well on its way to achieving its goal of a 'new Rwanda' where the 'unfortunate facts of history' are relegated to the past via footnoting them in the brochures for its fabulous gorilla safaris. Tensions remain. Rwanda will soon be something other than synonymous with machete-driven massacre.
The next news will come from somewhere else, where this morning neighbors of diffferent tribes chat over coffee and biscuits.
Movie Review: IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS...
Summary: 5 Stars
This film tells of a disturbing, shameful, and tragic episode in Rwandan history, a story that was shaped by the colonial racial politics of its former Belgian masters. In 1994, the African republic of Rwanda descended into civil war. The Hutu majority, inflamed by the political rhetoric of guerilla radio, rose up against the Tutsi minority. This tribal warfare led to mass murder, with neighbor against neighbor, and would eventually see nearly a million Rwandans killed.
During this time of great turmoil, fear, and slaughter, an oasis existed in the capital city of Kigali. That oasis was the Belgian owned luxury hotel, Milles Collines. There, its native manager, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a member of the Hutu majority, would find himself in the role of shepherd with a flock of refugees on his hands, which would include his own wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okenedo), a member of the Tutsi minority, and their children.
After the non-native guests and non-native refugees were evacuated to safety, Rusesabagina was left with the daunting task of taking care of nearly twelve hundred native guests and refugees, many of which were the hunted Tutsis, which just outside the gates of the hotel were being indiscriminately massacred, butchered with machetes or shot execution style at point blank range. Extermination of the Tutsi minority was the agenda of the day, and none, including children, were to be spared.
While a handful of United Nations peacekeepers were at the gates of the hotel, their presence was only for show, as their orders were not to shoot. One of them (Nick Nolte) finally told Rusesabagina, who was hoping for help from the outside world, that not a single country was going to lift a finger to help them, and he brutally told him exactly why. So, Rusesabagina was left with having to maneuver around the corrupt Hutu militia, getting supplies and whatever protection that he could, to ensure survival. Situational ethics was the order of the day, as Rusesabagina bribed, wheedled, and did everything he could to ensure that those in his care would survive and outlast the madness and carnage that was going on all around them.
This is a brilliant film, deftly directed by Terry George, who keeps the carnage and gore to a minimum. Yet, he manages with just a few well-placed scenes to convey a sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the genocide that took place, while the entire world watched and did nothing. Don Cheadle gives an amazing performance, low-keyed, controlled; yet, nonetheless, deeply moving. Were it not for the extraordinary performance of Jamie Foxx in "Ray", there is little doubt that Don Cheadle, who, along with Foxx, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, would have won. The rest of the supporting cast also give stellar performances.
This is a brilliantly acted, well-directed film that deserves a place in one's personal collection. Bravo!
Movie Review: A powerful, moving film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a film that haunts you long after you've seen it. What happened in Rwanda in 1994 was genocide--and more shocking than the events themselves was the fact that the international community stood by and allowed it to happen. Hotel Rwanda portrays the sheer brutality of the time, as well as the courage and heroism of people, especially of Paul Rusesabagina, in saving Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being massacred by the Hutu militias.
The film is based on something that actually happened. Rusesabagina, a Hutu, was a manager at a four-star Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali when the genocide occurred. He was a great negotiator, knew all the important people in Kigali, and was good at bribing and talking his way through difficult situations, a skill that later not only saved his life, but those of many others. The killings started with the assasination of the then President on his way back to the country after signing a peace accord with the Tutsi rebels. In the beginning, Rusesabagina refused to believe that things could be as bad as some people predicted, but realized fairly soon that the Hutu militias were determined to exterminate the Tutsis. He fled with his Tutsi wife and children to the hotel; the militia left it alone, mainly because of the Western tourists and journalists staying there. This made it a safe haven for other Tutsis, who started to pour in, escaping from the slaughter outside. Rusesabagina believed that the international community would stop the massacre; he felt that once people abroad saw what was going on in the country, they would not allow this situation to continue. But this faith was destroyed when, instead of sending help, countries start to evacuate their nationals, basically abandoning the Rwandans to their fate. There was only a small number of UN peacekeepers left with orders not to shoot. Rusesabagina somehow managed to keep the 1,200 Tutsi refugees alive by using his negotiating skills and his contacts, both within the Rwandan government and abroad.
Hotel Rwanda is a powerful film, with a superb performance from Don Cheadle as Rusesabagina, and Sophie Okonedo as his wife, Tatiana. Nick Nolte is excellent as Col. Olivier, the UN commander, a character based on the real-life commander, Roméo Dallaire, who tried to do something to stop the genocide, even if it meant defying his superiors. One of the things that shines through the horror is the love Rusesibagina has for his wife. Hotel Rwanda is not for the faint-hearted--there are some pretty gruesome scenes. But it is worth seeing--a sobering reminder that this scenario has been repeated countless times and will be, and that humankind does not seem to have learned much from the Holocaust.
If you're interested in the events in Rwanda, there's PBS documentary called The Ghosts of Rwanda, which is worth watching.