A shining example of one person's fight to try and do the right thing

Rating: 10/10 (19 February 2010)

I first watched this film only recently and after it was finished my overall feeling was of depression. Before I go any further I should say that it was a very disturbing and moving experience and I am glad that I spent the time to watch it properly. The film is very well made and the storyline is strong and ultimately as in most of this type of film the end result is whatever you make of it. This description sounds extremely vague but in my opinion the positive way of looking at it is that at least someone stood up to be counted and actually tried to save some of the people. If you look at it in a negative way only a small percentage of people were saved and perhaps it could be seen to be a futile attempt at trying to do what you can when virtually nobody is willing to help for numerous reasons. The way I sum it up is that one person saving one other person is an achievement and if everybody who was able tried this who knows how many more could have been saved. Anyway this film portrays people in the very worst of circumstances and this lofty ideal has its merits but when you are in a position of death being just a heartbeat away it doesn't really figure too highly in the minds of everybody under this sort of pressure. This film has been compared to Schindlers list and when you have watched it you will probably see why. This film represents an example of what happens when a group of people try to impose their will on another group of people. In my opinion unfortunately this situation will keep happening somewhere else because the United Nations and other organisations cannot act soon enough and when they do their frame of reference is so limited any peace keeping forces will not be able to interfere. At some point somebody in authority hopefully decides to do something helpful and if as in this case it is successful the world and its dog can watch in awe as someone cares enough to risk his or her life for others. Sadly it simply doesn't happen often enough and that is ultimately why this film is depressing to me. However as a shining example of a really brave person trying to do the right thing I would recommend this film to anyone.