"I promise to tell your story"

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2005)

With these words written on a visitors' log in a memorial site in Rwanda, the reason for making this stunning film is posed. HOTEL RWANDA is not only a well written (Keir Pearson), well directed (Terry George), well acted (entire cast) work of cinematic history, it serves as a thunderingly loud announcement of how the world ignored the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Africa - a country whose only exports are tea and coffee and therefore not high on the agendas of importance of the other nations of the world. HOTEL RWANDA brings us the realization that there are many unreported acts of inhumanity that never reach our television or radio or newspapers. How many of us knew about this incident before now? But this well-crafted film is all the more poignant because it focuses on the quiet heroism of one elegant, enlightened hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) and his response to the Tutsi rebel uprising that resulted in the slaughter of over a million people, and for what reason? Going back to the time when Belgium 'owned' the country they divided the people into the Tutsi and Hutu categories based on skin color, nasal width and other absurd parameters. With Belgium's exit the two parties were placed in delicate balance and long years of struggle for control resulted in the 1994 disaster.
The senselessness of the genocide is shown by the selection of victims for which the Tutsi rebels depended on registration cards to identify Tutsis from Hutus: in reality the people had intermarried - even Hutu Paul was married to Tutsi Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) - so that the killings were wholly irrational. Given this madness, Paul struggles with the insurgency and gives shelter to as many people as he can squeeze into his hotel, refugees including orphan Tutsis, hotel staff, and friends and fellow countrymen in need of a Gilead. All of this is happening while the United Nations contingency led by Col. Oliver (Nick Nolte) is impotent and the outside reporters such as Jack Daglich (Joaquin Phoenix) grab footage of the slaughter and flee to safety. Only a Red Cross nurse Pat Archer (Cara Seymour) remains to assist in any way she can. Paul attempts to contact the outside world through his employer Mr. Tillens (Jean Reno) of the Belgian Sabena Airlines, but the world refuses to recognize the reality of Paul's plight in saving his countrymen.
The cast is exceptional: Don Cheadle and Sophie Okoneda are brilliant in their roles and the supporting cast is superb. The DVD opens with a statement from Don Cheadle the actor, the movie unfolds, and the remainder of the CD includes 'the making of' sequences and historical segments that for once are not self-serving aggrandizement, but sensitively informing pleas for understanding and digestion of a genocide that was ignored. This is a powerful film that deals with an atrocity without electing to lambaste the viewer with gore: the message is more powerful for its understatement.