***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Don Cheadle, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Nolte, Joaquin Phoenix, Fana Mokeono, and Jean Reno
Directed by Terry George & written by Terry George and Keir Peirson
2004
121 min PG13
Dozen-or-So Best Films of 2004
“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
--Abraham Lincoln
“Hotel Rwanda” is the kind of movie that, in a roundabout way, will make die-hard Republicans reconsider slave reparations. My wife spent most of the ride home from the movie cursing the Belgians for leaving Rwanda in the state that they did. And she loves Hercule Poirot.
Yes, the movie is about Africans killing other Africans, but show me a genocide that isn’t, at some level, economically motivated. Hitler and Lenin did not come to power during times of prosperity. The czars did not squash their own people for the pleasure of it but because there wasn’t enough to go around. The French Revolution was not started by the well-fed. The Mongols didn’t become known as “the scourge of God” when their stock prices were up and they could just as easily have stayed at home. People will hate each other forever and ever but not really do anything about when their bellies are full. And who pillaged Rwanda of all it was worth and left it with no infrastructure? Why, the same countries and economic system that did nothing to help Rwanda, because Rwanda has no oil, diamonds, or white people worth protecting, and no Commies who need killing. And so some enterprising Rwandan maniac, following Hitler’s example, decides to mobilize the country by inventing villains out of thin air, blaming them for everything, and using their slaughter to solidify his power.
A world-weary, impotent, and thoroughly pissed-off colonel (Nick Nolte) from the United Nations explains this to the movie’s hero (Don Cheadle) after he has been ordered to leave the Rwandans behind. “You’re not even niggers,” Nolte says in despair. “You’re Africans.” Cheadle, who has spent the film scuttling around in the white man’s monkey suit, saying “please,” “thank you,” and “the UN will protect us,” despondently changes his tune. Now he says “I have no memory. I have no history.” This time he thought the West would behave differently. Even the Westerners thought they would do better this time around. As he is shuttled to safety by French peacekeepers, we overhear an American photographer (Joaquin Phoenix) muttering “I’m so ashamed.”
Of course the Africans were not saints when the Europeans showed up and they weren’t saints when the Europeans left, and the white guys in “Hotel Rwanda” are a sight better than their antecedents in “Heart of Darkness.” It’s entirely likely that if Africa, instead of Europe, had the resources necessary to spark an industrial revolution and become a worldwide empire, it too would have perverted its religions to justify global barbarism. (So when you see the powerful becoming corrupt, be thankful you aren’t similarly tempted.)
Part of “Hotel Rwanda’s” strength is to be about human beings, not holier-than-thou Magic Ethnics Showing the White Audience the Error Of Its Ways. There is a temptation in movies about how the “First World” effects the “Third World” to turn the locals into one-dimensional decorations, discussed and debated by white heroes. Fifty years ago they were all savages and the butt of jokes, after that they become angels (“Dances With Wolves,” anyone?), and in the past few years mainstream films have let them be people again. But “Hotel Rwanda” is not a completely inside job, like, say, “The Fast Runner;” everyone speaks English instead of French, for instance, because the movie wants us to feel ashamed of our indifference and rich, lazy comfort. For a truly guilt-ridden afternoon, watch “Hotel Rwanda” as a double feature with “The Passion of the Christ.”
The civil war in Rwanda is an ethnic division, and if you think that’s the stupidest thing to get in a fight over, it reaches the levels of a farce when we learn the source of the ethnic divide. One group is the Hutu, who were picked by the Belgians to serve as the go-betweens for the colonists and the Rwandans. The other group is the Tutsi. But the rub is, according to the movie, the Belgians picked who was Hutu not by any existing ethnic group or lineage, but because of who had the lightest skin, the smallest noses, and were the tallest. As this is explained to Joaquin Phoenix, he looks at two hotties next to him at the bar. One is Hutu and one is Tutsi. “They could be twins,” he remarks. If this reminds you of the Little-Endians and the Big-Endians from “Gulliver’s Travels,” you’re not alone. When the Belgians left, all the political power they had possessed and shared with the Tutsu minority was handed over to the Hutu. The Tutsi, who in all likelihood had become bankers and businessmen, were now the Jews to Rwanda’s Germany, so to speak, and a sitting duck to be vilified.
At the center of this is Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle), the real-life Hutu manager of the Belgian-owned Les Milles Collinnes hotel, who hides Tutsu refugees inside the hotel by the hundreds. As this is a movie about genocide, it’s safe to describe him as a cross between Vladislav Szpilman and Oskar Schindler. Like Schindler, he does not sit down and decide to do the right thing, but sees the eyes of those in danger and blurts out “come with me.” He uses a lifetime of business prowess, schmoozing, politeness, bribery, and calm reason. But he lacks Schindler’s con man instincts, and is more like Szpilman in that blind luck and last-second begging save dozens of lives. Because the mob and the Hutu army are never quite sure when all the white internationals left, they are never quite sure when they can storm the hotel. Because they don’t know how much retaliation they will suffer if they damage the Belgian hotel, they hold back. It’s surprising to see how long propriety holds out, to see how long the deference paid to Paul as the rich European’s employee is maintained. All the while, the man becomes more frayed, more desperate, and more giving. It’s not so much a transformation as a lifetime of decency reaching its full blossom. Cheadle’s performance is the best of this year’s Oscar nominees, because it is the most invisible.
Page two of "Hotel Rwanda." Back to home.