Finally got the courage to watch "Hotel Rwanda"

[grace0418]

I knew it was something I needed to see, I knew it was going to be good, and I love Don Cheadle, but I've been avoiding it because I knew it was going to break my heart.

First of all, bravo to Don Cheadle. He was wonderful, as always.

Second of all, I was right on all counts. It was a great movie, and it broke my heart in a million pieces. I feel like I felt after I watched Schindler's List– like I want to sit down and cry my eyes out for the next 12 hours. 800,000 people slaughtered. I can't even wrap my mind around that number.


:cry:

[Redbear]

1. The slaughter didnt break my heart nearly as much

as the lack of action from the rest of the world.

I agree that Don Cheadle was excellent.

[grace0418]

6. I know. It made me burn with shame. Especially when Joaquin Phoenix's character

said something to Paul along the lines of "Yes, this will get on the news. And people will look at it and say 'Oh my god, how horrible!' before going back to their supper." It is so true and I am just as guilty of it. I remember hearing about it, but I was in grad school at the time and very busy and didn't have time to really look into it further. Now I wish I had been organizing or volunteering or finding some way to get the world leaders to listen.

[Schema Thing]

39. Did you notice how they spanked Bill Clinton in the film?

they very painstakingly panned across a Time magazine with Clinton on the cover in a scene set in the hotel lobby.

[grace0418]

43. I noticed that too!

Well, he deserved it. 800-freaking-thousand people died while the world did NOTHING.

[southlandshari]

45. He deserved it

I still think he served this country very well overall and I would vote for him again for public office without reservation, but that doesn't mean he or anyone else gets a pass on a refusal to act in the face of the genocide in Rwanda. Mogadishu made Clinton gunshy, and that is understandable. It doesn't change the fact that action was needed, warranted and actually demanded by international law....and wasn't taken. Our inaction was and still is shameful. Period. To make excuses would be to whitewash something we ought to apologize for and learn from. IMHO, anyway.

Frankly, a glimpse of a magazine cover with Clinton's face on it that lasted a few seconds in the movie is far from a spanking. It was a barely perceptible nod to the historical reality that we failed to do the right thing in this particular case during his administration.

Are you saying that the treatment of Clinton in the movie was heavy-handed?

[Schema Thing]

47. No

i thought it was much deserved.

"spanking", "nod", same difference.

[Swede]

12. Here is the story from Romeo Dallaire the UN commander at the time.

In an indifferent world, Gen. Romeo Dallaire and a few thousand ill-equipped U.N. peacekeepers were all that stood between Rwandans and genocide. The Canadian commander did what he could-did more than anyone else-but he sees his mission as a terrible failure and counts himself among its casualties.
After a 100-day reign of terror, some 800,000 Rwandan civilians were dead, most killed by their machete-wielding neighbors. Dallaire had sounded the alarm. He'd begged. He'd bellowed. He'd even disobeyed orders. "l was ordered to withdraw...by Boutros Ghali about seven, eight days into it. .. and I said to him, 'I can't, I've got thousands' -by then we had over 20,000 people-'in areas under our control,"' Dallaire said in a recent interview with Amnesty Now. The general's hands, always moving, rose beside his face as if to block the memories. "The situation was going to shit....And, I said, 'No, I can't leave."'


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Gen_Romeo_Dallaire.html

[southlandshari]

15. Shake Hands with the Devil

I highly recommend the documentary version of Dallaire's book about his experiences in Rwanda and since...

http://www.whitepinepictures.com/dallairesite/

[Swede]

17. Thanks for the link.

[grace0418]

19. Thanks. I will check that out.

:cry:

[MrCoffee]

24. Read the book! Gen. Dallaire should have statues of him erected in every city in the world.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It was outstanding...

And heartbreaking...

:cry:

[grace0418]

10. The actress that played his wife was also wonderful.

Yeah, what else can you say but :cry:

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. A wonderful/rough film. Scary.

I bought the soundtrack. Some of the original music is very powerful.

[grace0418]

9. Interesting. I don't even remember the music, I was so riveted I guess. That's

a sign of a good soundtrack though, when it becomes fully part of the movie and doesn't distract you.

[Fire Walk With Me]

14. Exactly!

The original soundtrack definitely stands on its own, though.

[Breeze54]

4. Pretty freaking scary and unsettling, isn't it?

I think I had nightmares for weeks after watching it. :scared:

What happened there was horrible!!! :cry:

[grace0418]

8. I read about how Tutsis would actually pay Hutus to shoot them, as it was preferable

to being slowly hacked to death with machetes. They would actually cut off a hand, then come back an hour later and cut off another, and so on until the person finally died in agony. :cry:

How can anyone do that? I just can't understand it.

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. " How can anyone do that? I just can't understand it."

Recontextualization.

Reduce the "other" into less-than-human, and you can then throw them out like a used tissue. This is why those who teach judgement and differing valuations are negative, and those who teach unity and the strength in diversity are peacemakers.

Check into the Nazi propaganda against the Jews. And the lies Bush used to steal the Iraqi oil. Who cares what happens to them if they're terrorists, or might be? Very effective stuff.

[grace0418]

18. I know. I know. It just seems like even if you could be convinced that the "other"

was evil and needed to die, that it would still be beyond the scope of humanity to want to do it so brutally. To slowly hack someone to death over the course of hours seems like a whole different ballgame than shooting into a group of people with a machine gun. They end up dead either way, but damn...

My husband's parents grew up in the Philippines and were treated horribly by the Japanese during the war. Games of "catch the baby on the bayonet" and all kinds of other atrocities were fairly common. It blows the mind.

I try to think of the people who I think are most deserving of such a fate and I STILL would rather they die quickly and painlessly.

[ghostsofgiants]

5. Excellent film.

Try spending the past 3 months reading article after article on genocide and ethnic cleansing. Granted an academic article about it isn't going to have quite the same emotional impact as a film, but reading them over and over is intense stuff.

[grace0418]

7. I don't know how you do it. I think I would be drowning in despair right now if

I were reading all of that. Intense is right!

[Critters2]

11. I'm having a similar experience. I'm doing an independent study

on the work of Rene Girard, to meet my continuing ed requirement. I read all this stuff about sacrifice and scapegoating and how underneath so many myths there are real stories of real murder and violence, and it just becomes overwhelming. Nothing like living through it, nor even the impact of a film. But it does seem grueling after a while.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. Hey - did you watch the new South Park? Very Girardian!!

Brittney Spears as the scapegoat.

It was awesome!

[Critters2]

26. More than the Simpson's movie? Homer made a great scapegoat!

South Park is often Girardian. It's just a matter of who the scapegoat will be this week. Mel Gibson and the giant Barbra Streisand were pretty good scapegoats.

And to think, Girard found these themes by reading medieval French lit and Shakespeare. Snob.

I went to "Rush Hour 3" one afternoon to get away from mimetic whatnot, and nearly screamed at the scene where the woman tells Jackie Chan about the tradition that a woman would ride through the provinces of China with the names of the mob leaders tattooed on her head, and once they all had the info, she'd be beheaded, buried and forgotten--not even a grave marker. AAARRRGGGHHH!! It's like they're writing this stuff with Girard opened on their desks! And then she says, "And I felt honored to do it" DAMMIT!! I went to the movies to get away from this stuff!!


So, no. Haven't seen the new South Park, but I will-and will be watching for the Girardian themes.

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. You don't have to watch for the themes - they are VERY explicit in this one!

The adults even tell the children something like, "Look - every now and again we have to sacrifice someone to bring order back to the community. Brittney was chosen as a baby and has been raised to be our victim!" And all sorts of great stuff about sacrifice thourgh history and how they don't do it through violence, but through constant media harrassment until the person dies or kills him/herself.

and then, after Brittney was sacrificed, they showed that Hannah Montana was the next one...

[Critters2]

28. I actually saw "Dr. Drew" discussing how we're sacrificing Brtiney

one night on Larry King. He didn't get much into it, but said the scapegoating (yeah, he used that word) of celebrities is the topic of his next book. My jaw dropped.

[Iris]

29. Reminds me of LeGuin's "The One's Who Walk Away from Omelas"?

read it in college...it cut me to the core.

[Critters2]

38. I read that years ago, had nearly forgotten about it.

And you're right! It's very Girardian! I need to re-read it. Thanks for reminding me of it!

[southlandshari]

20. Shooting Dogs, Ghosts of Rwanda, Sometimes in April

are three other really incredible films worth seeing about the tragedy in Rwanda.

"Shooting Dogs" is aka "Beyond the Gates" here in the U.S. - probably the most powerful movie on the genocide I've seen. Fact-based fiction, more here:

http://www.beyondthegates-movie.com/


"Ghosts of Rwanda" is an excellent Frontline special made ten years after the events of 1994 - you can see it free here:

http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=190


"Sometimes in April" is an HBO docudrama focusing on the influence of hate-based radio on the genocide. Really worth a look, especially if you've seen "Hotel Rwanda". More here:

http://www.hbo.com/films/sometimesinapril/


And again, I highly recommend the documentary film version of Romeo Dallaire's "Shake Hands with the Devil", if you are really interested in what happened in Rwanda, why it happened, and understanding why it is already happening again in places like Darfur...

http://www.whitepinepictures.com/dallairesite/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Regardless of whether you decide to watch any or all of these films, I want you to know you are not alone in your feelings about what happened in Rwanda after seeing a powerful movie like Hotel Rwanda. Or in putting off seeing that movie or others like it. I did the same thing for a couple of years.

I'm glad you posted this thread.

[grace0418]

22. Thank you for the links.

Sometimes it's so hard to watch stuff like this when there is already so much happening in our lives and in the world that could fill us with despair, but I think it's important to at least be a witness for the people who are suffering so much.

[MrCoffee]

23. I thought Sometimes in April was much more powerful than Hotel Rwanda

I've been conflicted about watching Shake Hands With The Devil. I read the book (several times) and consider Romeo Dallaire a true hero in every sense of the word.


Did the movie treat him well?

[southlandshari]

25. The movie treated him

as very human and very heroic.

And everything in between. Perhaps the best biographical and historical documentary I've ever seen. And that's saying a lot.

My geeky love for documentaries is second only to my neanderthal obsession with college sports.




P.S. Watch "Beyond the Gates" if you haven't already seen it. Let me know what you think after you do, ok?

[YankeyMCC]

21. A powerful film

and I know what you mean about being a bit afraid to watch it, I hesitated too, but it takes courage to face the truth and that is the only way we can learn and act better in the future.

Seems like I heard someone else say something similar just recently about facing a difficult truth ;)

[grace0418]

32. Facing the truth... very good point.

I love to laugh and be entertained by films as much as the next person. But sometimes art makes you face the truth, as difficult as that is. Thank heavens that someone is at least giving a voice to the victims of the genocide, so we can try to learn. I hope we learn.

[Political Heretic]

30. I just can't do it yet.

Nope.

[grace0418]

31. I know, I totally understand. I cried and cried.

But I think that everyone should see it, and I wish I had seen it sooner. Maybe rent it along with two really funny, happy movies and sandwich in between.

Anyway, I do understand. It's heartbreaking.

[applegrove]

33. I was so angry at the end of that film when SPOILER ALERT a rag tag

bunch of teenage soldiers restored order and stopped the mass killing.

[grace0418]

34. Horrifying, isn't it? I couldn't believe Gregoire went (SPOILER)

and ratted out the UN convoy after he'd experienced running over all those bodies on the river road. You would think that would change a person, but I guess not. I don't konw if that particular aspect of the movie was fact or fictionalized but it really bugged me. I guess he was just trying to save his own ass.

[applegrove]

36. Gregoire was Romeo Dallair a canadian general. In real life he tried

constantly to contact the UN and the USA to get more troops and the right to shoot but was always told no. The real general suffers from PTSD and had a meltdown a few years ago - problem with alcohol etc. He wrote a book called Shake Hands With the Devil. He's been back to Rwanda and speaks about it and how he was ignored all over the world. I think they even made a movie.

What got me so mad wasn't that Gregoire didn't help - he couldn't in real life without troops or authority. It was the the UN and Nato decided to ignore the genocide for 3 months despite Dallair's pleading. When all it would take would be a few thousand troops with real guns to restore order. The children did it at the end of the movie and that really put the whole thing in perspective for me. How nobody in the west lifted a finger when even the mildest military intervention would have put fear of death into the machette wielders and they would stopped.

[grace0418]

37. Are you sure? Gregoire was the character who

holed up in the Presidential suite, threatening to turn Paul in for harboring Tutsis. Then he finally went back to work after the militia general threw the bucket of water on him, only to snitch on the UN convoy later in the movie. That character didn't seem like he would've done anything positive.

[applegrove]

41. I thought gregoire was the name of the general. Sorry my bad.

[grace0418]

42. Oh, okay. That makes more sense. I kinda thought Nick Nolte's character

(who's name I never got) was the general.

[applegrove]

44. His name was something like Olivier. Some french name. Why I got confused.

[bigwillq]

35. A terrific movie (nt)

[southlandshari]

40. Agreed

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I already gave my views on this earlier today.

I just wanted to give this thread a kick and to give you a big :hug:

:hi:

[LordJFT]

46. the sad thing is its such a powerful movie and people still don't seemed to have learned from the

rwanda genocide

[lizerdbits]

48. I felt the same way after seeing it

I made the mistake of watching it on a Sunday evening and needless to say had serious difficulty falling asleep. :cry: