HOTEL RWANDA (RECOMMENDED)
"I dont think we have any national interest there. The Americans are out, and as far as Im concerned, in Rwanda, that ought to be the end of it."
-Bob Dole, April 6 1994
The 1994 massacre of 900,000 Rwandan Tutsis by their fellow Hutus is one of the more shameful examples of the US (along with its allies) turning its back on a country overwhelmed by madness and evil. By vetoing all official UN declarations of Genocide (a term that would have obligated the US to intervene), nearly an eighth of Rwanda's population was allowed to be butchered, mostly by machetes, in less than four months.
Writer/director Terry George's (Some Mother's Son) harrowing political melodrama, Hotel Rwanda, pulls no punches when indicting Europeans and Americans for protecting their own citizens while leaving Rwandans to die. A former journalist, George brings an acute sense of context and history to the story of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the hotel manager of the Milles Collines, a four-star Belgian resort, and accidental savior of nearly 1,200 people. Rusesabagina, a soft-spoken man who believed in civility and decorum, used diplomacy, flattery, bribery and obfuscation to safeguard the refugees sheltered inside the resort's walls.
There is a moment in the film where Nick Nolte, playing a compassionate UN peacekeeper, tells Rusesabagina that the UN is pulling out, that no one will be coming to Rwanda's aid. "The West, all the superpowers, they think you're dirt," he spits, "They think you're dung. You're not even a nigger. You're African."
It's hardly subtle but quite effective. George wants to shame us for turning a blind eye on such a monumental (and potentially avoidable) tragedy. As pampered Americans we are complicit in the devaluing of African lives. We simply didn't care enough.
Joaquin Phoenix, in a terrific cameo as a photographer, drunkenly laments that the brutal footage he's shot of machete-wielding mobs will probably change nothing. "If people see this theyll say 'Oh, my God. That's horrible. Then they'll go on eating their dinners."
Comparisons to Schindler's List are inevitable. Both Schindler and Rusesabagina were company men on the 'right' side of conflict who refused to accept the horror around them and saved as many lives as they could.
While not nearly as masterfully artful (or horrifying) as Spielberg's much celebrated film, Hotel Rwanda does succeed in the one place Schindler failed; depicting a protagonist whose motives we fully understand. Despite Liam Neeson's fine performance, Osker remained a frustrating cipher, a man whose heroism seemed to bloom from nowhere. The motives behind Paul's actions and his growing courage, however, are very real and very human.
Eschewing grand gestures, Cheadle does a outstanding job of portraying Rusesabagina as a cultured and understated man who, at first, hopes only to save his family, and in particular his tutsi wife. As the world around him descends into madness Paul is forced accept that the quiet and cultivated life he has carved out for his family is forever lost.
The further realization that his 'friends' and colleagues are little more than opportunists who would betray him without conscience, leads him to use his skills to save the refugees. It's a difficult decision for this very ordinary man and he does it at great peril to himself. What is remarkable is that faced with indifferent officials, corrupt generals and rampaging mobs, Rusesabagina always maintained a sense of dignity and decency.
There are missteps in the film to be sure. Some of the dialogue falls flat and the film's pace periodically flags. Director George is good at ratcheting up visceral moments of suspense but strangely restrained in his depictions of violence. One wonders why a film unafraid to confront the western world's indifference to third world suffering would soften the blow when depicting the unspeakable brutality perpetrated by the Rwandans. It's hard to make a PG-13 movie about genocide.
There are films that, while far from perfect, should be regarded, and even praised, for the importance of the story they tell. Hotel Rwanda, a very good but not great film, is an effective and important dramatization of an event no one should forget or allow to be repeated.