Hotel Rawanda

[Takeereasy]

Has anyone seen this flick recently? I'd heard good things about this movie but I was still shocked at how powerful it actually was. A warning though, this movie has some intensely disturbing footage and content made all the worse by that fact that events in the movie really happened. Some movies can accurately depict mans inhumanity to man and that is the kind of violence I find disturbing. I can watch any slasher/horror pic out there, as well as any really violent flick like Sin City, without batting an eye. It's in movies like Hotel Rwanda that I find myself looking away because I don't want to see what happens next. Don Cheedle does an incredible job, and it took me showing my girlfriend a clip of him in another movie to convince her that he wasn't really an African national. He seems like a guy to watch IMO. It's not just him though. Everyone in the cast, even extras are utterly, scarily, believable. The looks of terror on every one of the Tutsi's faces, and the look of contempt on the Hootu tribesmen faces while they carry out acts of atrocity that make most people blanche, seem genuine. What I found most disturbing was the radio station broadcasts encouraging the wholesale slaughter of the "cockroaches". This atmosphere is what it must have been like for Jews in German occupied Europe in WWII. There is a palpable sense of dread in the air.

This movie tugs at every emotion you have from joy to sadness, to hope to fear. In one second you want to despair the species, and the next you see how a man can rise above to make a difference. I for one found myself about half a second away from yelling at the TV screen on at least a couple of occasions. That is something I don't do very often if ever. This movie is fantastic and I can't recomend it enough.

 

[sts9fan]

i agree

The big differece with Rawanda and WWII was that in Rowanda the rest of the world did not care

Remember if you buy dimonds you support thing like this. You can tell yourself other wise but that rock you love means nothing but the blood of other humans. Think about it. There are other alternatives that don't cost lives.

http://www.apollodiamond.com/

 

[Takeereasy]

Yeah, the world turning it's back was disgusting. Canada had more troops there then anyone, but we are under UN jurisdiction when deployed in peacekeeping roles for them. Canada doesn't have anywhere near the US military ability, and our equipment is obsolete at best in most cases. That said we were the UN peace keeping frontline choice untill the late 90's. And that said it's a disgrace we didn't do more, and what's worse this kind of crap goes on all over the world still today and nothing gets done about it. Too bad Rawanda doesn't have oil, then the superpowers would have been all over this. I've got to stop here I feel a real rant coming on as well as page after page of me pondering one country's right to interfere in another's internal policies (no matter how wrong by my standards) and what we as the fortunate countries should do. Too political for a Friday afternoon.

You can always buy Canadian diamonds. Same quality, but they cost more than African diamonds.

 

[claudermilk]

Thanks for the review. My wife and I were looking at this one in the Blockbuster the other night--ended up grabbing Finding Neverland & Ray instead. Probably a good thing.

I will have to watch that one eventually though.

 

[Takeereasy]

This movie is great, but I don't want to oversell it. The violence isn't incredibly graphic like say the elevator scene in taking lives, but to me it's worse, knowing that this movie is patterned after actual violent occurences. It's like watching Schindler's List, ok not as graphic as Schindler's list or as good a movie imo, but the violence seems real. To me that is scary, not some guy chasing teenagers with a hockey mask and chainsaw. To me it is unfathomable to harm anyone let alone a child, but these guys actually target kids to wipe out a whole generation. It breaks my heart knowing that people can do that to each other. And again, the performances are all so damn good, so....believable that this movie should have had some of its actors nomnated for something. But there is a sense of triumph in the movie. Small victories, but victories none the less I guess.

 

[claudermilk]

That's about what I was thinking. Schindler's List, and to a lesser degree Blackhawk Down are so effective because they are based on real events. To me that's definitely more disturbing than some imaginary kook with a chainsaw. I remember coming our from watching Shindler's List feeling like someone had spent the last two hours kicking me in the gut--and the reactions of the crowd waiting for the next showing seeing us coming out of the theater.

 

[cmusic]

I liked Hotel Rwanda better than any movie I saw that came out last year. I thought it was much better than the Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby. I could really feel the dedication, commitment, and conviction the whole cast, crew, and everyone associated with the movie had trying to do the subject matter justice.

There was only one technical glitch I found in the movie: when the UN peace keepers were evacuating the "white" people from the hotel in the busses there was a massive rainstorm happening. When I looked into the not so distance background of the scene there was abundant sunshine. It's not a big deal to me, and it does not distract from the movie. I sometimes like to look for technical errors in movies.

 

[Takeereasy]

Schindler's list might have had more impact because I saw it first on the big screen. People in the theater were crying and it was just so much bigger and in your face at the theater. What's really sad is you'd like to believe no one could do that to another person, but in reality, they probably downplayed the violence.

Another movie with graphic realistic violence is tears of the sun. Most notably in the village massacre scene. Napalm couldn't have happened to a nicer group of people. For me though the elevator scene in taking lives is the grossest event on film I have ever seen hands down.

The violence in those two movies is merely shocking. Sure things like that happen, but these are made up stories. I find "made up" violence pales when compared to actual events.

Cmusic, I never noticed the sunshine during the rain scene, but that's still a good find. You're not the only one guilty of looking for "spoilers" like that.

 

[HookedOnSound]

IMHO, It's a very good movie.

I definitely recommend watching it, it's an eye opener for sure. (avoid yound kids watching it though)

There is stuff in there that my blood curl.

I have watched horror movies that don't bother me to this depth. It's the kids that gets to me.

With WWII we said: Never again! and guess what? it did.

We created the UN to avert these kinds of slaughters but we tied its hands with so much bureaucracy and red tape coupled by the fact no one wants to face the responsibilites of actually committing themselves to such a cause. They care more about political standings and voter polls than actually caring for their fellow man.

People genuinely cared about Rwanda but it got little media exposure. There was more focus on things like the tsunami that hit Asia than Rwanda. Why? Money. Who do you think owns all those Hotel chains and tourist destinations? America and Europe. Those ppl were poor already with nothing in their name so explain to me how come they need billions? Think about.

If you want to start changing the status quo, we have to make our governments realize that we're not as stupid as they think we are.

Sorry for the rant.

 

[nick_danger]

I was curious what our government was doing about that region of the world and googled:

http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/Apr/15-677631.html?chanlid=washfile

I'm glad to see we're doing SOMETHING...