Hotel Rwanda

[Kal]

no offense, but judging from the poster it looks like a zombie movie.

true... and at some scenes of the movie it also seems like a zombie-horror movie... but a very good one...

[Gold Trumpet]

I remember reading Arturo Barea's The Forging of a Rebel over the summer, his auto biography of his life and work during the Spanish Civil War. He was a wealthy business man. His upbringing was crude compared to the usual sophistico and so he never felt like he ever belonged. As the civil war approached, he found himself almost accidentally drawn to the causes of his people. He made no attempt to be a hero. He was just a business man who believed in certain things and everyone looked to him because they felt he could make a difference even if he didn't believe it himself. There was no big plot. It was his life and how being just who he was made him the survivor who made a difference. I saw this accidental hero in Hotel Rwanda. And also, I saw the same story. Nothing big or explosive but his life to a point that by the end you felt like you were running for his same struggles and his own daily life became your own. Forging of a Rebel, a masterful book, transcended Spanish life into my own and so does Hotel Rwanda. Its a great movie of simple power with nothing to prove but a story to tell.

[Finn]

It was a terrific movie. Very emotional and incredibly powerful. I'm with Ghostboy on this one. It's like Schindler's List minus the Spielberg artistic touches.

[SHAFTR]

February 14, 2005 - MGM Home Entertainment has announced it will release Hotel Rwanda, starring Oscar nominees Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo on April 12 for a suggested price of $26.98. The film also features Joaquin Phoenix and Nick Nolte.

The film tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle), a hotel manager who hides 1,200 Tutsis in his hotel to protect them from the wholesale slaughter that took place in 1994. For his bravery, Rusesabagina is often compared to Oskar Schindler, who saved 1,100 Jews from Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

The video will be in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. Extras include:


Audio Commentary by Director Terry George and Paul Rusesabagina, with select commentary by Wyclef Jean.

Selected scenes commentary by Don Cheadle

A Message for Peace: Making Hotel Rwanda documentary

Return to Rwanda documentary

Theatrical Trailer

[Jeremy Blackman]

Will this be the only negative review in this thread?

MILD SPOILERS

Maybe my memory of the film isn't the greatest, but I don't think one single death was shown onscreen. That to me is extremely offensive. When you're making a movie about genocide (especially this genocide), for God's sake, show some death, preferably lots of it. Death is what happens in genocide. Anything less is dishonest. Showing dead bodies is not enough. (The fog scene would have been disturbing were it not for the offensively heavy-handed music.) Schindler's List got it absolutely right and probably would have benefitted from more death. This is ABC Miniseries-quality fluff. Seriously, a PG-13 genocide movie?

Cheadle was disappointing, though I can't put my finger on why, and I don't think it's his fault at all. I think this movie fell apart in post. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they deleted some significant violence. In one of the featurettes, the director explains how he rewrote the original script to make it more accessible and market-friendly, deleting characters, simplifying and narrowing the heroism, and focusing on the love story.

Get rid of the obsessive heroism, the disgusting music. Have some close-ups. It would be a totally different movie. Imagine Cheadle's emotional moments in close-up and without the obnoxious music.

[life_boy]

Maybe my memory of the film isn't the greatest, but I don't think one single death was shown onscreen. That to me is extremely offensive. When you're making a movie about genocide (especially this genocide), for God's sake, show some death, preferably lots of it. Death is what happens in genocide. Anything less is dishonest. Showing dead bodies is not enough. (The fog scene would have been disturbing were it not for the offensively heavy-handed music.) Schindler's List got it absolutely right and probably would have benefitted from more death. This is ABC Miniseries-quality fluff. Seriously, a PG-13 genocide movie?

I understand the critique to a point, but the film was told from Paul Rusesabagina's point of view.  So, it might be dishonest to "show some death, preferably lots of it," especially if that's not what he saw.  I didn't get that the movie was "about genocide;" I got that it was more about one man's actions during a time of genocide.  So, to me, the lack of violence and death is understandable.  

Should there be more violence and death in the film?  I don't know.  I can see arguments for both sides.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I understand the critique to a point, but the film was told from Paul Rusesabagina's point of view.  So, it might be dishonest to "show some death, preferably lots of it," especially if that's not what he saw.

Good point. But I think it did reach beyond a one-man experience. Paul went into dangerous territory many times in the film, and I think several times there was killing happening offscreen or just before/after the camera arrives at the scene. That's explicit self-censorship. I also have difficulty believing that the real-life Paul Rusesabagina (especially during those trips) didn't see any death.

And since this film has really been marketed as the Rwandan genocide movie (and since it's the only one likely to be made for a while), I think it had quite a bit of responsibility.

[MacGuffin]

Rwandan president scoffs at "Hotel Rwanda"

Rwandan president Paul Kagame on Wednesday dismissed the Oscar-nominated drama "Hotel Rwanda" as an attempt to rewrite the history of the central African country's 1994 genocide.

The 2004 film refueled world interest in the massacres, in which some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days of killings.

"Hotel Rwanda" stars Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a luxury hotel in the Rwandan capital Kigali who uses his position to help save more than 1,200 Tutsi refugees.

Kagame said the movie's portrayal of Rusesabagina as a hero during the genocide was false.

"It has nothing to do with Rusesabagina," Kagame told reporters during a visit to Washington. "He just happened to be there accidentally, and he happened to be surviving because he was not in the category of those being hunted."

Kagame said people in the hotel were saved in part because U.N. forces occupied the hotel and because the killers wanted to keep it as a place where they could drink beer after a long day of killing and discuss whom to kill the following day.

Kagame, a Tutsi, said another reason lives were spared is that talks had been underway between his rebel group and the then-interim government to exchange Tutsis in the hotel for Hutu soldiers captured by his group.

"Someone is trying to rewrite the history of Rwanda and we cannot accept it," he said.

Some survivors of the genocide also have been critical of movies about the slaughter, saying Hollywood got their story wrong.

Amid international inaction, the genocide was finally ended by Kagame, who led a rebel army from Uganda to seize power.

Rusesabagina, awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, has recently been critical of the Kigali government, accusing it of continued human rights violations and oppression of political opponents.