Hotel Rwanda

In his 1999 book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, journalist Philip Gourevitch delivers a painfully vivid account of the genocide that ravaged Rwanda in 1994. His book stands out not only because of the praise heaped upon it, but because it remains one of the few reports of the tragedy that was given any attention by the Western mainstream media. As Terry George's new film, Hotel Rwanda, points out, the rest of the world largely shielded its eyes during the actual crisis, and has not gone out of its way to redress this oversight.

This is the main reason Hotel Rwanda is such an important film. In terms of narrative and style, it doesn't reinvent the wheel, though George handles a difficult subject matter with nuance and skill. But in the end, Hotel Rwanda is less likely to be remembered for its aesthetic qualities than for its searing depicting of the almost unimaginable horrors of the genocide, much of which Western audiences will be acquainting themselves with for the first time.

The incidents surrounding the massacre are far too complex for a 110-minute feature film to address sufficiently, yet given the time and budgetary constraints, George does a remarkable job of cramming in as much information as he can. The movie focuses on the 100-day period during which the ruling Hutu tribe set out a call for its members to slaughter all Tutsis; in the end, this campaign of genocide left one million dead. In the midst of this carnage, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), the Hutu manager of a posh hotel in Kigali, managed to save the lives of 1,200 innocent people.

Lest this sound overly like Schindler's List, it should be noted that while Steven Spielberg made a gentile the protagonist of his Holocaust drama, George and his co-writer Keir Peterson persist in putting an actual Rwandan at the center of their story. Cheadle delivers a powerhouse performance as Rusesabagina; all traces of his American accent and mannerisms vanish, and a haunted, world-weary expression moves in to fill the void. The British actress Sophie Okenedo, who had a brief but powerful role in Stephen Frears's Dirty Pretty Things (2002), is also a revelation here as Rusesabagina's Tutsi wife.

Although Rusesabagina is inarguably a hero, to the film's credit, it does not beatify him. Moments of fear, selfishness, and humor are all allowed to poke through, and as a result we get a portrait of a fully-rounded human being, which in turn makes his heroism seem even more impressive. By presenting him as such, the filmmakers also implicitly question the audience as to how they would act in a similar situation.

Hotel Rwanda may be a tough film to watch, but given the current state of the world, it remains uncomfortably relevant.