Rated (M) Don Cheadle, Joaquin Phoenix

This fine film from director Terry George operates on two levels. On one, we have the remarkable true account of a Hutu hotelier who managed to shelter his family and dozens of Tutsis amid the madness of 1994 when Interahamwe militia terrorised Rwanda’s Tutsi population. On the other, it’s a polemic on the criminal failure of the West to intervene as their figurehead for international peace, the United Nations, sat impotently on the sidelines as thousands were massacred in a campaign of organised genocide.

Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is manager of a four-star international hotel in the capital of Kigali when Tutsis are blamed for the sudden assassination of Rwanda’s dictator. A UN-brokered peace agreement is in tatters and ethnic tensions have boiled over into outright war. As gangs of Hutus run rampant, spurred on by the sinister militia-run radio and unopposed by the Rwandan army chiefs, Paul employs his quick wit and cunning to protect his predominantly Tutsi guest list from the mayhem by maintaining the pretence that it’s business as usual at the hotel.

Of course, it’s a ruse that can only delay the inevitable for so long, and as Tutsi refugees start pouring into the hotel grounds in equal numbers as UN peacekeepers start evacuating, Paul finds the gravity of his Schindler-esque role bear down on him.

What the film achieves to its absolute credit is a jolting portrayal of terror and violence that never desensitises its audience with graphic bloodshed. The director doesn’t want his audience to turn their heads in disgust – he wants them to see and he wants them to remember.

Joaquin Phoenix plays a maverick news cameraman and Nick Nolte is a UN colonel frustrated by an indifferent bureaucracy.

Erin Tennant

http://insights.uca.org.au/reviews/film/a-m/hotel-rwanda.htm