The Timing of the Actual Genocide could not be anymore poignant!

Rating: 10/10 (1 April 2007)

In 1994, Steven Spielberg and the film, Schindler's List, won countless awards and honors for it's subject on the Holocaust and how one German businessman, Oskar Schindler, caught in the struggle helped save over a thousand lives. Like Paul in Hotel Rwanda, Oskar was a businessman who was seeking opportunity in Cracow. Just like Paul, Oskar saved a thousand lives from the gas chambers and concentration camps. While Rwanda is nowhere near Eastern Europe and is located in Africa, we know very little about Rwanda. In 1994, the Rwandan president was murdered leaving two ethnic groups, the Hutus, and the Tutsis as enemies again. The order was removed. The Hutus were incited by hatred, lies, propaganda, and direction from their leader to kill those "cockroaches" known as the Tutsis. By the end of the genocide, almost a million Tutsis were murdered. Paul is a hotel manager for a Belgium company, Sabena, who is put in charge. His wife is a Tutsi and he is a Hutu. The hotel has guests played by Nick Nolte who is a Canadian UN Peacekeeper unable to do anything because of red tape and Joaquin Phoenix is a cameraman for a news organization who risks his life to videotape the slaughter on the streets. For those sheltered at the Hotel, Paul maintains that it will be a safe place whether there is enough food, water, or supplies. Paul must bargain with the general who does not believe that he will be found guilty of war crimes against the Tutsis. The horrors of this genocide is not brutal because we don't see much blood but we see bodies lying on lawns and the brainwashed killers with machetes. Paul played by Don Cheadle definitely earned his Academy Award nomination as did Sophie Okeondo who was nominated. I wished it was nominated for best film of the year. Unfortunately, the western nations took their slow time in stopping the genocide. Rwanda does not have oil but coffee and tea. This story is about 1268 refugees who survived the genocide in 1994.