Movies |
Hotel Rwanda
directed by Terry George
By
Published: Jan 01, 2005
Category:
Drama
More than a million people slaughtered in l00 days.
"The fastest, most efficient killing spree of the twentieth century," as Samantha Power describes it in her prize-winning book, "A Problem from Hell."
And the movie about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda has a….PG-13 rating?
What kind of movie is that?
As it turns out, a very great one. A very moving one. Above all, a thrilling one.
And all the more thrilling because we know how it ends before we even go to the theater. (This is one time when movie reviewers cannot "ruin" a film by divulging the ending — we have been told in every interview and advertisement that this is the "true story" of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in Rwanda who saved 1,200 of his countrymen during the civil war.) But knowing that Paul and his family and the refugees he jams into his luxury hotel survive the massacres only makes everything that happens in "Hotel Rwanda" more improbable — the killing is so crazy you can’t imagine how anyone lived through it.
The story in brief: In April of 1994, the President of Rwanda died when his plane was shot down. The Army asserted it now ruled the country — but the Army had no control over the Hutus, who had formed a militia and now started attacking a rival Rwandan tribe, the Tutsis. The Hutus were heavily armed. And they had machetes — 580,000 machetes, one for every third adult Hutu man.
Peacekeeping? That was the responsibility of the United Nations. Its man on the scene was a Canadian General, Romeo Dallaire. Rwanda was one of Africa’s poorest nations, and Dallaire’s supplies were appropriate to the place — only 80 of his 300 vehicles were usable. Even more, he lacked any support from the United States. Black people killing black people in a distant land wasn’t big news in America. If only whites had been in danger….
I once did a project with Gilles Peress, the great photographer who has a reputation for showing up where no sane newsman would go. I remember him showing me a book of his Rwandan photographs. There was a two-page spread of a child’s pajamas.
"What’s the point of this picture?" I asked. "It’s just…pajamas."
"There’s a child in there," Gilles said softly.
"How can that be?"
"They cut off the head, then they cut off the arms and legs so the ghost of the child cannot follow them and haunt them," Gilles explained.
So that is how it was: a frenzy of butchery.
As it happens, we have a hard time grasping murder on a mass scale. But we’ll cry over a lost dog. Weird, but that’s how it is. So Terry George — who wrote "In the Name of the Father," a movie about British injustice to the Irish that makes it very easy to understand why this is the longest-running war on trhe planet — wisely narrowed the focus of "Rotel Rwanda" to one man and his family.
Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle, in the performance of his career) is the manager of Mille Collines, the Belgian-owned luxury hotel in Kigali. He is suave, making sure he has a good stock of Cohiba cigars and single-malt whisky for hotel clients and government officials. And he lives in a neighborhood that could be an American suburb.
That’s what makes "Hotel Rwanda" so shocking — it’s as if a vast gang started hauling people out of Burger King and ripping down the gates of condominiums and then wantonly raping and killing. It’s a bit more complicated in Rwanda: Paul is Hutu. But his wife (Sophie Okonedo) is Tutsi. And all Tutsis are marked for death.
From here the movie becomes "Schindler’s List" — only better. Because in World War II, we know the Allies are fighting their way into Germany. In Rwanda, we know the Americans don’t give a damn. (Which explains the despair of Nick Nolte, the UN peacekeeper modeled on Romeo Dallaire.)
Over and over, it seems that all is lost — that Paul cannot possibly protect his family and the Tutsi refugees who stream into his hotel. And yet he does. Not because he’s brave; I’ve seen hundreds of films in which heroes never flinch, so it’s especially welcome to see Paul’s honest terror. No, Paul is smart. Paul is resourceful. And Paul is very very lucky.
A sophisticated, clever black hero: there’s a much-needed role model. And not just for Africans and African-Americans — for all of us. But don’t go to "Hotel Rwanda" for the moral lesson. Go for the best thriller in a long time. Cheer for the most satisfying hero you’ve seen in years. And then, when you come home, if you can’t let it go, order Samantha Power’s book and grapple with America’s unwillingness to get involved when people who are not important to our interests are being butchered.
To watch the trailer for "Hotel Rwanda," click here.
To buy "A Problem from Hell," click here.
