Hotel Rwanda (2004)

Hotel Rwanda
Call No: PN1997.2 .H66 2005

My viewing of Hotel Rwanda was a complete accident. After an afternoon of channel surfing, one of my housemates pulled up a list of free movies that our cable box provides. Hotel Rwanda was on that list. She’d always wanted to see it. Not knowing anything about it except for the fact that it was available at the library. I said sure. I could watch the movie and take notes or do some homework on my laptop at the same time. Within the first half hour, my laptop was completely forgotten.

The year is 1994, and a civil war is brewing between the Tutsi and Hutu people of Rwanda. Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is a hotel manager who has a climbed his way to the top, always willing to do anything for anybody. But when civil war breaks out the hotel becomes a place of refuge, Paul finds himself alone. He tries his best to manage the chaos, all the while wondering why help isn’t coming. He soon begins to realize that they are alone in this fight and that someone will have to make a stand. That someone will have to be him.

The strength of Hotel Rwanda comes from the portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina and his family. We are introduced to this man and his family. We genuinely like them, and can relate to Paul’s struggle to support his family. Often compared to Schindler’s List, the main character of Hotel Rwanda is similar to that of Oskar Schindler. Neither of these characters were heroes at the start. They were just ordinary men trying to make a living. But when faced with adversity these men did what they had to in an attempt, not to save themselves, but others. Schindler was a German standing up for the Jews. He wasn’t in any danger himself. In Hotel Rwanda, the Hutu are killing the Tutsi people. Paul is Hutu, but his wife is Tutsi. Much like Oskar’s relationship to his assistant Itzhak Stern, Paul’s bond with his wife and his friends are what drive him to pick up and carry the struggle as  best he can.

Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo (who plays his wife in the film) are inspiring and brilliant in every scene (both received well-deserved Oscar nominations for their work). They are ordinary people thrown into a near-impossible situation. We like them. We sympathize with them. The characters they embody make their performances riveting. This is the same of everyone in the film. Look for Nick Nolte as a frustrated UN Peacekeeper and Joaquin Phoenix as a reporter who reveals an important but devastating reality.

Paul and the hotel refugees

This movie has the power to stay with you whether you want it to or not. It has the potential to shock you. But it doesn’t do it with grand slayings on the battlefield with plenty of gore. It doesn’t do it through bad language, until it’s so overused it almost becomes comical. It does it gracefully. It shows you a family that it would like you to meet, a country that you might not know and a struggle you might not be aware of. And then it shows you what happened to that family, that country, and that struggle. And somehow, without realizing it, you find yourself involved and invested in that family and that country. This is not a war epic or a destruction blockbuster. It doesn’t have to be. The story and shock of what people are capable of doing to one another is enough.