Hotel Rwanda

I don't usually watch movies on a Wednesday evening, but we've had Hotel Rwanda from Blockbuster since this weekend and I decided it was time to finally watch it. Talk about a powerful film. Don Cheadle gives an amazing performance as a Hutu hotel manager who tries to protect Tutsis from genocide not unlike Schindler in Schindler's List. Nick Nolte also is excellent in the role of a U.N. peacekeeper who is powerless to stop the killing because of the lack of support from Western nations. It's nice to have something positive to say about Nolte since the only thing I could associate with him was this picture.

The disturbing part of the film is how true it is to the events that actually took place in 1994. At the time I was only thirteen years old, but I remember seeing the footage of the Tutsi people fleeing their homes. I know I wasn't overcome with sadness - it could have been happening on Saturn as far as my world view was concerned. Watching a film like Hotel Rwanda provides viewers with a frame of reference that newscasts can't provide. I doubt the U.S. and other nations would have acted as they did if the film had been released in 1994. The public outcry would have been overwhelming. Instead the West stayed out and a million people lost their lives. One of the most powerful moments of the film occurs when a cameraman from the BBC leaves the safety of the hotel in an effort to get intriguing footage for the stations back home. When he returns with horrible images of the genocide he quickly pops the tape into the VCR to show his colleague not realizing Paul (Cheadle) is standing behind him also seeing the massacre of his own people. The cameraman quickly apologizes to Paul who responds, “No, thank you for filming, that is the only way the international community will understand what’s going on here...that is the only way they will send help.” The cameraman responds saying, “They will not send help.” Paul doesn't understand and replies, “How can they not send help, how can they not do something after what they’ve seen?” The cameraman responds with the film's most harrowing and truthful line: “They will see it on the news and will say, ‘Oh, that’s horrible’ and then they will return to eating their dinner.” Hotel Rwanda is not an enjoyable film, but it is one we need to see.