Hotel Rwanda
Apr. 21st, 2005 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakToday, I watched Hotel Rwanda, which manages to be that rare thing, a film tackling genocide which doesn't sell the enormity of the horror short, and yet does not resort to excessive gore to do so. It takes its cue from old-style horror films in this regard. We don't see the slaughter itself, we hear snatches, we see the aftermath, and that makes it far more terrifying. At one point, the main character finds his son covered in blood. It's not his son's blood. The boy can't speak anymore for the rest of the film. And works far more efficiently than if we had scene whatever slaughter the child was witness to.
Hotel Rwanda has been compared with Schindler's List, and it shares the quintessential trait of making a story about genocide bearable by concentrating on the survivors and the man who helped rescue them. But it is fueled by a moral indignation and a fury that is quite un-Spielbergian and more the territory of filmmakers like Sidney Lumet. Because make no mistake, this is a J'Accuse of a film. About a third into the movie, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), our main character, expresses the conviction that once the world sees the pictures a journalist has just taken of the slaughter, they'll intervene. No, replies the journalist (cameo by Joaquin Phoenix), they'll just say "how terrible" and go back to dinner.
Belgian colonialism of the past causing the Hutu/ Tutsi enmity to begin with, US disinterest in helping (and painfully avoiding the term "genocide"), European disinterest in helping (with a name check of France indeed having armed the Hutu before), the UN soldiers having orders not to use their weapons - the moral responsibility (and failure) of the West is placed soundly on everyone's shoulders. There also isn't, a la Biko, a white pov character - Hollywood take notice, this isn't necessary. Cheadle blends in with the (excellent) African cast and gives a great understated performance as Paul, going from not wanting to get involved when his neighbour gets beaten up to saving over a thousand people.
The most striking sequence of scenes starts after Paul has gotten new supplies for the hotel from one of his sources (who happens to be a genial murderer, happily participating and instigating the butchery). He takes another road back and suddenly thinks he lost the road because his car bumps up and down. Gets out. And the fog of the pre-dawn rises to reveal the road full of dead bodies. Once he's finally back in the hotel, Paul locks himself in a room and breaks down, and there isn't a second where you think this is artificial - it's the human horror about what humans did, finally unlocked. An incredibly powerful scene.
Another thing: before the first (harmless and idyllic) pictures of pre-genocide Kigala are shown in this movie, we hear a voice, a radio broadcast spewing hate and propaganda. This radio broadcast goes on throughout the film. This, too, heightens the realism; because genocide needs its planners and propagandists as much as its executioners. There isn't any main villain in this film, no face you can blame what is going on for (though there are several minor characters showing contributing and/or profiting from it); there is a voice. And that is a more effective depiction of evil than any I've seen in a long while.
Hotel Rwanda has been compared with Schindler's List, and it shares the quintessential trait of making a story about genocide bearable by concentrating on the survivors and the man who helped rescue them. But it is fueled by a moral indignation and a fury that is quite un-Spielbergian and more the territory of filmmakers like Sidney Lumet. Because make no mistake, this is a J'Accuse of a film. About a third into the movie, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), our main character, expresses the conviction that once the world sees the pictures a journalist has just taken of the slaughter, they'll intervene. No, replies the journalist (cameo by Joaquin Phoenix), they'll just say "how terrible" and go back to dinner.
Belgian colonialism of the past causing the Hutu/ Tutsi enmity to begin with, US disinterest in helping (and painfully avoiding the term "genocide"), European disinterest in helping (with a name check of France indeed having armed the Hutu before), the UN soldiers having orders not to use their weapons - the moral responsibility (and failure) of the West is placed soundly on everyone's shoulders. There also isn't, a la Biko, a white pov character - Hollywood take notice, this isn't necessary. Cheadle blends in with the (excellent) African cast and gives a great understated performance as Paul, going from not wanting to get involved when his neighbour gets beaten up to saving over a thousand people.
The most striking sequence of scenes starts after Paul has gotten new supplies for the hotel from one of his sources (who happens to be a genial murderer, happily participating and instigating the butchery). He takes another road back and suddenly thinks he lost the road because his car bumps up and down. Gets out. And the fog of the pre-dawn rises to reveal the road full of dead bodies. Once he's finally back in the hotel, Paul locks himself in a room and breaks down, and there isn't a second where you think this is artificial - it's the human horror about what humans did, finally unlocked. An incredibly powerful scene.
Another thing: before the first (harmless and idyllic) pictures of pre-genocide Kigala are shown in this movie, we hear a voice, a radio broadcast spewing hate and propaganda. This radio broadcast goes on throughout the film. This, too, heightens the realism; because genocide needs its planners and propagandists as much as its executioners. There isn't any main villain in this film, no face you can blame what is going on for (though there are several minor characters showing contributing and/or profiting from it); there is a voice. And that is a more effective depiction of evil than any I've seen in a long while.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 01:27 pm (UTC)But yes, I remember, too. Those awful euphemisms. Anything but to call it murder and genocide.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 02:04 pm (UTC)I'm so used to seeing the press conference filter of the news. The flip, for me, was one of the things that really shook me most about the movie. In the movie the press conference is turned off in disgust just like the propaganda voice. It was even harder to hear government & press euphemisms laid over the movie than it was to hear them at the time of the events.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 04:30 pm (UTC)And I thought of events in Sudan etc. right now, reported in the same vein...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 06:25 pm (UTC)At least the USA, and now the rest of the EU, is comfortable calling the Sudan genocide. (Which brings me to okay, fine, we know what it is, now what are we going to do about it?)
Thanks for making this post.
- hg
no subject
Date: 2005-04-21 06:56 pm (UTC)Oh yes. We had a debate today in parliament about whether or not what the Turks did to the Armenians a hundred years ago can be called genocide. Why there couldn't be a debate instead of what to do about the genocide in Sudan RIGHT NOW is beyond me...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-22 03:46 pm (UTC)