a review by J. Robert Parks
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Director – Terry George
Writers – Keir Pearson and Terry George, in consultation with Paul Rusesabagina;
Director of photography – Robert Fraisse
Editor – Naomi Geraghty
Music – Andrea Guerra, Rupert Gregson-Williams and Afro Celt Sound System
Production designers – Tony Burrough and Johnny Breedt
Producers – A. Kitman Ho and Terry George
United Artists. 121 minutes. Rated PG-13.
STARRING: Don Cheadle (Paul), Sophie Okonedo (Tatiana), Joaquin Phoenix (Jack) and Nick Nolte (Colonel Oliver).
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Ten years ago, almost a million people in Rwanda were slaughtered during a four-month span. Though Western leaders knew what was happening, they chose to do nothing. The promises of “never again” that people uttered in response to the Holocaust were found to be utterly empty. Apparently genocide is acceptable if it happens in Africa. Even today, the seeds of genocide are being sown in west African nations like Liberia and Nigeria, and in southern Africa locales such as the Congo, and all the West will do is cluck its tongues and wring its hands.
It is especially appropriate, then, during this Oscar season that a movie about Rwanda is finally showing up in theaters. Hotel Rwanda is based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, who was a manager of a five-star hotel in Kingali, Rwanda and who sheltered hundreds of refugees during the carnage. The violence was based on long-simmering feuds between the Hutus and the Tutsis. The German and then the Belgian colonizers had pitted the ethnic groups against each other, and the hatred only intensified after independence in the early ’60s. The spark that set off the conflagration was the assassination of a prominent Hutu general. Many have speculated that the assassination was the work of Hutu extremists who were anxious for any sort of justification. In any event, the Interahamwe militia soon began killing Tutsis by the thousands.
Rusesabagina was himself a Hutu, but his wife Tatiana was a Tutsi, as were all of her relatives. When the violence first started, Paul was able to move himself and his extended family into the hotel. The hotel was largely protected because of the heavy presence of white Europeans, but Paul was also able to call on many connections in the Hutu hierarchy. As the weeks went on, more and more Tutsis sought refuge. But when the Europeans were evacuated (under United Nations protection), hundreds of refugees were left with only Paul standing between them and certain slaughter.
Don Cheadle plays Rusesabagina in a marvelous performance. His sense of powerful dignity is especially compelling, and he commands the camera with old-fashioned screen presence. We believe this is a man who could both eat with powerful generals and navigate his way through the rough neighborhoods of Kingali. Adding his star power to the movie is Nick Nolte, who plays Colonel Oliver, the primary UN commander in Rwanda. The UN peacekeepers were later vilified for their lack of action during the genocide, but Oliver comes off as an admirable if hamstrung character. Though he’d like to intervene, the major nations of the UN refuse to give him any authority, and all he’s allowed to do is escort white Europeans to the airport.
Director Terry George plays up this irony beautifully. There’s a crushing scene when a group of French priests and nuns accompany a huge throng of refugees into the hotel compound. The priests and nuns (who are mostly white) are allowed to board a bus for the airport, while their African charges are forced to stay behind. Shooting in a daytime rainstorm (and based on actual European television footage), George captures in a microcosm the horror of how Western nations abandoned the Africans who so desperately needed their help. In a bitter image, the black hotel workers hold umbrellas over the white tourists as the latter board the bus and the former stay behind to face almost certain death.
Hotel Rwanda isn’t all despair, however. George knows that he’s making a Hollywood film, and so much of the movie focuses on the romance between Paul and his wife (Sophie Okonedo). Filmed with an emphasis on close-ups, these scenes almost make us forget what’s happening outside the hotel walls. The manipulative musical score only adds to that sense of isolation. And by focusing on Paul, his immediate family, and a group of orphans, George is even able to give an approximation of a happy ending, a decision which seems both out of place and misguided.
Nonetheless, it’s difficult to imagine any mainstream film showing us the horrors of what happened in Rwanda. That Hotel Rwanda accomplishes this and more is testimony to George’s devotion to the project and a deep desire shake us out of our complacency. While the film doesn’t explicitly point to contemporary events in Sudan, the Congo, and Liberia, it hopefully will challenge Western audiences to consider what’s happening in Africa and take action.
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J. Robert Parks also publishes reviews at The Hyde Park Herald and The Phantom Tollbooth.