Hotel Rwanda -- Response it

Hotel Rwanda -- Response

It is often said that Americans, because of the youth of the American nation, have little sense of a common world history. However, the drama of the film "Hotel Rwanda" also suggests that we as Americans may have too much of a sense of genocide as a historical, rather than a contemporary concern. Genocide is often thought of as something that takes or took place in the far past -- 'back in the days of the Holocaust' -- when genocide is a crime that continues to be perpetuated, again and again, in contemporary history, often to the continued blindness of the world's eyes and the world's media. How many times, one finds one's mind and heart provoked to ask, upon viewing a film such as "Hotel Rwanda," must Americans vow 'never again' -- when genocide is a crime that seems to occur again and again?

The film "Hotel Rwanda" was based on a true story of the civil war that plagued Rwanda's capital city of Kigali. What transpired during 1994 is often described as a civil, that is internally perpetuated, genocide. Because the genocide took place within an African nation, between polarized tribes and regional ethnic groups, and because it did not threaten to spill over into other nations that neighbored the major European powers unlike the genocides of Europe, this African genocide was lagetly ignored by the world.

The events that led up to the story of "Hotel Rwanda" began when the Hutu militia came to power. The Hutu army aimed to systemattically elimated all of the Tutsis from the nation. However, the owner of the title hotel was a real-life Hutu with a Tutsi wife. He resolved, partly out of necessity and partly out of compassion, to act with discipline, fearlessness, and quiet reistance to the Rwandan genocidal army forces of 'his' ethnic tribe. In a largely unrecognized act of kinness at the time, thousands of children, neighbors and other refugees who sought sanctuary at his luxury hotel were given a place to hide.

The film thus shows an ordinary man, who, for the love of a woman, committed an extraordinary act of personal courage and selflessness. It shows much like Steven Spielburg's "Schindler's List" how ordinary people -- businessmen and husbands alike -- can do the amazing, when called upon by historical and personal needs. However, the true events depicted in the film are also somewhat shaming to the contemporary American viewer. It is saddening to realize how much of the events that transpired occurred during relatively recent years, and received almost no press, except the occasional mention in a tiny corner colum of the newspaper, when far less disasterous local events received coverage.

The film is horrifying, but not because it is graphic. It is poetic in its cinematorgraphy as well as realistic. For example, sometimes the director focuses on the weapons rather than the bloody bodies of those who have become the victims of the government and mililita organized mass killings. Sometimes the film merely shows the cold and calculated expressions of the Hutu extremists rather than the faces of those who are soon to become their victims. Some of the violence is also reported secondhand, such as the stident government calls for more warfare over the radio or the testimony of international aid workers. The faces of the workers, who are horrified of what they have witnessed, speak as loudly as the images of the violence.