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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
"Hotel Rwanda" provides a very sad history lesson of mistakes piled atop mistakes from the very beginning of
the White colonialist expansion into Africa.
Rwanda was originally a colonial outpost of Belgium along with its neighbor, the Congo, then called the Belgian Congo.
The White colonialists brought their prejudices and bigotry with them when they arrived with the result that the minority
ethnic tribe of this future country, the Tutsis, were favored because they were taller, they had lighter skin, and they possessed
thinner noses. One ugly story mentioned in the movie is that people were hired only after passing a "nose test,"
in which the width of their noses was actually measured. If their nose was too wide, then they failed to get the job.
After the passage of about a century in which the Tutsis held all the plum jobs and ran the country under the tutelage
of the Belgians, the Belgians gave the country its independence. However, they practically guaranteed future friction when
they left the majority tribe, the Hutus, in charge. The Hutu ethnic hatred which had simmered after a century of second class
citizenship was thereafter always in danger of flaring up.
Another major problem, and one that is comparable to the same problem now existing in many of the countries of the Middle
East, is that boundaries between the colonial holdings were drawn according to convenient geographical boundaries, like rivers
and mountains, instead of drawing boundary lines based on the ethnic tribal divisions. As a result, far too many countries
ended up composed of multiple tribes, many of which have had a long history of bitter enmity and warfare. This situation practically
guaranteed the failure of the tribes ever being able to pull together to run their new country.
In spite of this long, sad history, there were a few people who had intermarried and had developed friendships and loyalties
to both of the tribes. Some of the Tutsi and Hutu intelligentsia, like Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), had been educated
in Europe and had traveled widely, thus possessing a far more elevated world view than most of their uneducated countrymen.
Paul ended up replicating the heroic life of another cinematic hero, the German Oskar Schindler, who saved a similar number
of Jews by employing them in his munitions supply company for the duration of World War II and then helping to transport them
out of Germany when the opportunity arose.
Like Schindler, Paul initially was a reluctant hero interested only in the safety of his immediate family, but when hundreds
of refugees poured onto the grounds of the four star hotel that he managed in Kigala, he used all his resources, both his
legerdemain and whatever assets he could use as bargaining chips, to get food, supplies, and an eventual trip to safety for
his family and all those sheltered under his care.
This movie is intense not just because of the few scenes of bloody violence that are displayed, but in the eyes and the
faces of the participants on both sides of the conflict. The terror of little children, who try in vain to hide their eyes
from the savagery. The wide eyed mothers who look about them in abject fear knowing full well how close they and everyone
in their family are to being hacked to death with machetes or just summarily shot to death by trigger happy soldiers.
They have seen it all, especially the burned out shells of still smoking houses formerly occupied by their Tutsi neighbors
and the hundreds of corpses lying about everywhere. There are no Tutsis left to rescue the bodies for burial and no Hutus
who will deign to touch them. The bodies are left there rotting in the heat of the tropical sun to serve as little more than
carrion for hungry animals.
And then there is the complete and utter hatred of the Hutus. Radio commentators whip up their Hutu citizens by commanding
them to topple all "the tall trees in the forest." That all Tutsis are "cockroaches" who deserve to die.
More ugly and brutal is a later broadcast that a U.N. secret convoy of trucks actually contains Tutsis hidden inside and the
radio commentator demands that rogue gangs armed with machetes stop this convoy and kill all the Tutsis before they have a
chance to get to the airport and escape.
There is one military commander who replies to Paul after being asked about the absurdity of all the killing. His answer
is that he wants to kill all the Tutsis, even those who are still left in the hotel, because they are "cockroaches."
Paul then asks, "Why?" and adds, " You can't kill them all?"
The commander chillingly replies, "Why not? We are already more than half way there...."
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:
This is one of those movies that has very justifiably been praised as being one of the best films of the year. Unfortunately,
it is also a very painful and sad film to watch. "Hotel Rwanda" falls into that strange category of film that deserves
every Oscar it wins, but will also be a film that few will want to see a second time.
However, it serves an invaluable service and a deeply moving lesson of man's continued inhumanity to his fellow man. Regrettably,
the Jewish refrain of "Never again!" after World War II to a repeat of ethnic and religious genocide has been broken
so often in the intervening years as to give a lie to humanity's ever seeming to be able to learn from its past mistakes.
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
Life can be harsh in the African country of Rwanda, but a thriving middle class has built up in the capital city of Kigala.
Foreign dignitaries, diplomats, corporate executives and perhaps even a few tourists have given many of the citizens a taste
of life beyond the borders of their small homeland.
Anyone who is anyone stays at the four star Hotel des Milles Collines while in Kigala. The grounds of this luxurious hotel
are surrounded by a high wall so that the guests can go about the duty of relaxing in a synthetic world similar to their own
back in their home country. The food and the drinks are wonderful and the rooms in the hotel allow the guests to escape the
tropical heat and to relax in air conditioned comfort.
There is always the large swimming pool just outside for the children to play in to keep them occupied while their parents
wheel and deal at the luncheon tables nearby.
One of the wheeler dealers is General Augustine Bizimungo (Fana Mokoena), a Hutu who commands the forces of Rwanda. The
understanding is that his empty briefcase is to be left unlocked in the coatroom and when he leaves he will be happy to find
it filled with several bottles of the finest single malt European scotch.
The Belgian owners of the hotel have left it in charge of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the Hutu manager who has had
the good fortune to have been educated in Europe. Paul is an intelligent, gracious man with the instincts of a politician,
but also someone who is completely trustworthy. He knows how to play the system so that the hotel clients always have their
needs fulfilled in this distant country with a fragile economy riven with rampant corruption.
Rwanda is dominated by a population that is 80% Hutu and 20% Tutsi, but the Tutsis had thrived under the former Belgian
colonialists so that they have the advantage of having had generations of education and experience in adapting to the Western
model of business operation.
Paul is a rarity as an educated Hutu, but what is even more rare is the fact that he had fallen in love and married Tatiana
(Sophie Okonedo), a woman from the Tutsi tribe. This gives him the decided advantage of having the trust of both tribes and
he uses this advantage to do whatever he can to further the economic interests of his hotel.
In Rwanda the members of the Hutu tribe are darker skinned, shorter, and have more Negroid features, while the members
of the Tutsi tribe are taller, lighter skinned and possess more Occidental-appearing features. Thus the minority Tutsi have
never been able to hide their tribal ethnicity from the Hutu majority. The tribes have never been close and, worse yet, the
Hutus have chafed for a century under the rule of the Belgian colonialists and their predilection to conduct all their business
dealings with the Tutsis.
Now the tables have been turned as the Belgians have left the Hutus in charge when they granted Rwanda its independence.
The Hutus and the Tutsis have lived side by side very uneasily ever since.
Periodic outbreaks have caused a few members of the United Nations Peacekeeping Team to be stationed in Kigala, and they
operate, when possible, out of Paul's hotel. Their leader is Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte), who always wants to do the right
thing but seldom has the resources or the authority to do it.
Working along with Colonel Oliver are members of the foreign press corps, including Jack (Joaquin Phoenix), a hard drinking
and heavy living newsman who clearly sees the oncoming descent of Rwanda into chaos.
Even now the situation is very tense with radio broadcasts exhorting the Hutu populace to rise up against the Tutsi "cockroaches."
Paul hears a rumor that whenever the code phrase "Now is the time to cut all the tall trees in the forest" over
the radio, the real meaning will be a signal for the Hutus to begin attacking the Tutsis in earnest.
Paul, being a Hutu, is allowed access everywhere, but he finally decides that it is far too dangerous to bring his loyal
Tutsi driver with him on any more trips off the hotel grounds to obtain supplies. They all have seen too many bodies of Tutsis
lying outside the wreckage of their still smoldering homes. Each wonders if his home and his family will be next.
Even at home in a secure middle class neighborhood the seriousness of the situation makes itself starkly apparent when
noises are heard. Paul goes outside to peer through the wooden fence surrounding his home and he sees an armed militia breaking
down the door of the house across the street and beating the Tutsi occupants as they are dragged outside. The men in their
jeeps come across the street to challenge Paul and his family, but his Hutu passport for the moment is enough to ward them
off.
They are not so lucky the next evening when he comes home to find his family gathered in one room with the lights out.
A few other Tutsi families with their children are also gathered in his house. Members of the Hutu armed militia now break
into the house and are about to kill them all, but once again Paul saves the day with his Hutu ethnicity coupled with a well
placed bribe to the commanding officer.
They can no longer live in safety in their home, so Paul brings his wife and two daughters to the hotel the next morning.
Others have obviously made the same decision, since the oncoming daylight produces hordes of Tutsi refugees fleeing onto the
hotel grounds. Even the young students from a grade school run by Belgian nuns and a priest end up in his care. The Hotel
is quickly filled to far more than capacity as almost 1,200 Tutsis, including a few "traitorous" Hutus who have
befriended them or married into their families, have come inside for protection.
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