What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Hotel Rwanda is on the following AFI list:
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#90)
Hotel Rwanda is the third Africa message movie to appear in my weekly red envelope in the past couple of months. Don Cheadle, another actor I like in just about everything he does, was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, and, for some reason, I've never been able to see this film until this past week, on my day off after a long weekend of technical rehearsals for "A Wonderful Life" at the Grand Rapids Civic Theater (buy a ticket today!). As it turns out, it also happens to be an AFI movie! The sneaky AFI decided that the film was worthy enough to make the 100 Cheers list, the list they deemed to be the 100 most inspirational films in American film history, which was published the year of the film's release. I think that's a fair cop - after all, Hotel Rwanda tells the truly inspiring story of one man's selflessness in the face of insurmountable odds. It was an incredibly moving motion picture, moreso than similar films I've watched in recent memory.
Based on true events, Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, manager of the Hotel Les Milles Collines in Kigali. The hotel is a swanky arm of a Belgian corporation, which generally serves rich (White) Westerners, high-powered African officials, and journalists. As the movie explains, through some very compelling storytelling by peripheral characters, including an American journalist (Joaquin Phoenix), Rwanda once colonially belonged to Belgium, and those in power decided to divide and designate the Rwandan people according to look, such that some are considered Hutu while others are considered Tutsi. The Tutsis, which I guess were traditionally lighter skinned and perhaps more European looking, and also were in the minority, were given power upon Belgium's exodus from the country. Thus, Hutu extremists, traditionally oppressed along these tribal lines, initiated a mass genocide of Tutsis in the late 90s. At first, Paul, who is Hutu and is married to a Tutsi woman, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo), is content to use his uncanny talent for sweet talk, charm, and salesmanship, and his steadily acquired political and financial capital, to preserve his family's safety, but as he witnesses a rise in the murder of innocent Tutsi men, women, and children, he realizes he cannot ignore their plight. He manages to house several Tutsi refugees in the hotel, while visitors to Rwanda are deported or rescued and Hutu loyalists commit increasing acts of violence with the intention of purging their country of Tutsis. Paul is left in charge and must fight to protect the people hidden in his hotel as powerful Hutu sects seek to attack it, and as United Nations peacekeepers, including one played by Nick Nolte, attempt to protect the people, hoping in this act of futility that Western countries will intervene.
I loved this movie because it was so moving. First, it adequately explained and provided the historical context of this civil war and did so in a way that did not feel like I, as the viewer, was being pandered to; in fact, I doubt that many people realize the source of this conflict, even if they were aware of the conflict itself. This film provided a powerful historical mirror to look back and examine an otherwise little-known but ugly chapter in world political history. In fact, the real life Mr. Rusesabagina was a consultant on the film, so the story being told was compelling because it was a true story based on real events, told from the perspective of the person who was actually involved.
Second, Cheadle gave an incredibly nuanced, resonant, and powerful performance as Rusesabagina. The range of emotions displayed as this character ran the gamut from pure fright, to indignant anger, to relieved joy, to commisserating sadness and empathy. It was tour de force, and his sincerity and, in many ways, naked compassion were incredibly touching. I cried at this film; in fact, the story and his performance moved me far more than the last two Africa message movies I consumed.
I think the most impressive part of this movie is how the director and filmmakers did not resort to showing the most graphic of the violent acts to paint the picture. Instead, the film was punctuated by disturbing images, including bodies lining the streets and blood on children to provide just enough of the story to grab hold of the viewer and actually tug at those heartstrings, without doing so in a manipulative or, as I indicated, graphic way. There was just enough imagery to reach a conclusion, that the atrocities were undeniable, without totally glorifying one tribe or demonizing the other one. The film's focus was the human interest angle and the actions of one man, but it was also an examination of the results of segregation and discrimination that provided an interesting parallel to many conflicts throughout the world, including race conflicts in America.
In that way, I've read in many places that this film is "sort of an African Schindler's LIst." There are many similarities that can be gleaned from the two films, especially given the similarlity between Oskar Schindler's evolving sense of selfishness turned selflessness to Paul Rusesabagina's evolving sense of self-protection turned protection of people with whom he has nothing in common. To make that comparison and call it all a day's work is too easy and too trite, however. It's a different time, a different conflict, a different people being depicted, and the only lesson in deriving such a comparison is, perhaps, the idea that history repeats itself, often cyclically. My feeling after reading this description was to dismiss it; after all, there may be similarities between the two men in focus, but that only gives me hope that if the bad stuff in history repeats, so too does the good stuff. Schindler's List is an artistically better directed film anyway.
That's not to say that the film is perfect. In fact, there are two points in the story, two scenes, that render the film less than perfect for me and made me wonder whether it really happened that way or whether it was a license taken by the filmmakers to try to force high drama in an already intense and dramatic motion picture. For one, there is a scene in which Nick Nolte's character explains to Rusesabagina that no one will come to help the refugees or the Rwandans because they are merely African - yet the dialogue uses a somewhat tasteless racial slur that seems so out of place, even if the point is meant to describe Africa as the forgotten continent and its countrymen as forgotten people. The other scene is when Paul tries to convince his wife that it would be better if she and their children, including their traumatized son, jumped from the roof of the hotel rather than be shot by any Hutu soliders that overrun it. I guess his argument is that the children would, in that event, not be able to see their mother or parents die first or vice versa, but it seemed like a tall and implausible request, even in those extreme, life-threatening circumstances (though it was more likely to have happened and made more sense than the other needless scene).
Still, I think Paul Rusesabagina's story is truly inspiring, and I loved the movie because the story was complete, the suspension of disbelief was complete, the performances were excellent, and my heart was officially filled with horror, hope, sadness, and joy, which is about as much as you can hope for from a drama of this type. I think the film deserves an 8.5 rating, between minor flaws and very good (given the couple of less-than-palatable or sense-making scenes) and perfectly entertaining. As for the test, I'm not sure about this one. I don't own Schindler's List, which is a superior film that I've seen a number of times; I mean, I just don't see pulling out Hotel Rwanda for a giggle when I'm merely looking for a movie to watch. Even if the test is not a pass, though, I still highly recommend this movie because I can't imagine anyone not being moved by the inspirational story it tells, making it a deserving entry on its one AFI list.