Hotel Rwanda

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Hotel Rwanda
Directed by Terry George
Produced by Terry George
A. Kitman Ho
Written by Keir Pearson,
Terry George
Starring Don Cheadle
Sophie Okonedo
ahmed panchbaya
Nick Nolte
Jean Reno
Distributed by Lions Gate Films
United Artists
Release date(s) September 11, 2004
Running time 121 min.
Language English
Budget ~ US$17,500,000
IMDb profile
Ratings
United States:  PG-13 (Rerated from R)

Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 biographical and historical drama film about the Rwandan Genocide, directed by Irish filmmaker Terry George. It is a co-production between Canadian, British, Italian, and South African companies, and the first ever co-production between the rival independent film studios Lions Gate Films and United Artists. It was filmed mostly in South Africa, with some second unit filming in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

The movie is based on the true events that took place during the genocidal violence that erupted in Rwanda between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in 1994. The central character is Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a Hutu who managed the four-star Sabena-owned Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with a radio being tuned in to RTLM, playing an extremist anti-Tutsi broadcast (“They are cockroaches. They are murderers. Rwanda is our Hutu land”) to elaborate on the situation in Rwanda in 1994. Massive ethinc tensions existed between the Hutus, the majority ethnic group and the Tutsis, the minority ethnic group who had once controlled. The invasion by the predominantly Tutsi RPF and the resulting civil war had increased these tensions.

Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) and his wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) make a good living in Rwanda with their four children, as Paul is hotel manager of the Belgian resort, the Hotel des Mille Collines - perhaps the most extravagant hotel in the country. As Paul continues his daily job of gladhanding high-ranking Rwandan officials and foreign visitors, he starts to become aware of a dangerous tension brewing in the city. Early in the film Paul goes to visit George Rutaganda, deputy leader of the Hutu extremist Interahamwe militia, who encourages him to join the Interahamwe. Paul, a moderate Hutu, refuses. Paul begins to realize that something terrible is about to happen in the country, but his fears are eased because the United Nations and foreign press are in the city to cover the president signing a historic peace agreement.

Paul and the others at the hotel are informed that the president was killed when his plane was shot down, presumably by the Tutsi RPF rebels. Massive Hutu riots begin, as tens of thousands of Tutsis across the city and country are slaughtered by the Interahamwe, who are backed by the (predominantly Hutu) national army. Paul immediately looks after his family only, and hopes the uprising will be quelshed because of the U.N. presence in the country, coupled with journalists openly documenting the slaughter. (One such journalist in the country is played by actor Joaquin Phoenix.)

As conditions worsen, Paul starts to locate his friends and relatives, many of them (including his wife) are Tutsi, in an attempt to transport them to the hotel, as it is under the protection of U.N. soldiers, led by Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte). Paul manages to bribe violent soldiers into letting his friends and family live, and gets them into the hotel. Hundreds more refugees flock to the hotel for safety and the staff becomes overwhelmed with feeding and helping all the children and injured. Ten Belgian U.N. soldiers are murdered while protecting Tutsi Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was also killed.

A convoy from a French-led intervention force arrives, but only to evacuate foreign nationals, mostly whites and journalists who were guests there. Oliver leaves the hotel with only four U.N. guards and shamefully tells Paul that no foreign help is coming to stop the slaughter because no one cares enough to intervene, as troops from both the intervention force and from some of the UNAMIR nations withdraw. Paul telephones all his contacts and trades in favors he had built up as manager of the hotel. His phone calls buy him some time, as army men are told to stay away from the Hotel des Mille Collines. While Paul continues to bribe and beg for refugee lives, he has Rwandans call their political contacts outside the country to shame them into helping. The phone calls continue to work successfully, and a portion of the refugees are picked up by a U.N. convoy to be evacuated, but the Interahamwe attack the convoy. Oliver and his men turn the trucks around and make it back to the hotel.

RTLM radio urges Hutus to storm the hotel and kill Paul as well as all the Tutsi “cockroaches”. Paul, in a desperate attempt, manages to convince his contact in the Hutu army, General Augustin Bizimungu, that he will be charged with war crimes unless he comes to the hotel and stops the Interahamwe from slaughtering refugees. Bizimungu attempts to convince Paul to retreat with him and the army to Gitarama, to escape the RPF rebel advance on Kigali, but eventually agrees with Paul. The plan works, and the refugees are saved. A large convoy of U.N. trucks finally arrives to save everyone, traveling away from the hotel. The convoy passes thousands of fleeing Hutus, attempting to escape from the RPF. The convoy is rescued from an Interhamwe attack by a RPF ambush and is able to reach the refugee camp. At the camp, Paul and Tatiana find their two missing nieces among other lost children, and celebrate their survival and reunion.

The ending titles reveal that Paul managed to save 1,268 refugees and that the RPF invasion and the Hutu army/Interahamwe retreated into Zaire. It also explains that Rutaganda and General Bizimungu were tried from crimes against humanity, but also reveals that almost 1,000,000 Rwandans lost their lives in the genocide.

[edit] Historical accuracy

The film appears to contain some historical inaccuracies:

  • The character of Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte) is a fictionalized synthesis of Canadian Lt-Gen. Roméo Dallaire,Commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, along with several other Canadian commanders. Some have complained that Dallaire is not given due credit for his role in trying to stop the violence. Dallaire is quoted as saying that neither the producer, nor Nolte himself, consulted with him before shooting the film[citation needed].
  • The film depicts Pakistani soldiers among the UN peacekeepers, although there were none in reality (some were Bangladeshi).
  • Characters in the film refer to the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" , instead of Zaire, which was the name of the DRC at the time.
  • Colonel Oliver in the film is Canadian but refers to his lieutenants as "lieutenants" the American prononciation; however, the Canadian pronunciation is modeled after the British where the rank is pronounced "leftenant".
  • According to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times [[1]] , Paul Rusesabagina is being sued by over 100 people who were in Hotel de Mille Collines during the genocide for distorting the truth of events. Current Rwandan President Paul Kagame has claimed the hotel was spared because Hutu militants wanted to use the refugees there to exchange for hostages held by the Tutsi rebel forces. The people who used the hotel as a refuge accuse Mr. Rusesabagina of exaggerating his role in the genocide for profit.

[edit] Responses

The film has received a great deal of critical acclaim, with a 90% 'fresh' rating on RottenTomatoes.[1] As of March 2007, the film is ranked #62 in The Internet Movie Database's ranking of the top 250 films. In the United States, the film was originally rated R, but is one of the few films that appealed and won its appeal. It was re-rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and brief strong language. Hotel Rwanda was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Actor for Don Cheadle, Best Supporting Actress for Sophie Okonedo, and Best Original Screenplay for Keir Pearson and Terry George.

The American Film Institute ranked Hotel Rwanda as #90 on its list of the 100 most inspirational movies of all time. Film critic Richard Roeper said that it was one of the most inspirational films that he had ever seen and named the film the best of 2004.

According to the December 3, 2006 edition of 60 Minutes, Hotel Rwanda is the fifth most-rented movie on Netflix due to its acclaimed recommendations system.

[edit] Awards/Nominations

Academy Awards
Category Performer Result
Best Actor Don Cheadle Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Sophie Okonedo Nominated
Best Original Screenplay Terry George & Keir Pearson Nominated
BAFTA Award
Category Performer Result
Best Original Screenplay Terry George & Keir Pearson Nominated
Black Reel Awards
Category Performer Result
Best Actor in a Drama Don Cheadle Nominated
Best Actress in a Drama Sophie Okonedo Winner
Broadcast Film Critics
Category Performer Result
Best Actor in a Drama Don Cheadle Nominated
Best Picture N/A Nominated

[edit] Cast

[edit] Trivia

The Land Rover Defender vehicles used by the UN Pakistani peacekeepers in the movie are new Td5 models. These differ from 1994-era vehicles in several ways including having styled alloy rims instead of plain steel. The green Defender used by the Hutus is UK-military spec, probably an 1980s era ex-MoD surplus. The peacekeepers' trucks are South African-made SAMILs.

Because Hotel Rwanda was filmed mostly in South Africa, where road traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road, many of the vehicles are right-hand drive. Rwandans drive on the right side of the road, so the use of right-hand drive cars is incorrect for standard vehicles. The mistake is most obvious in the scenes involving buses, which have passenger doors on the left -- in Rwanda, people using those buses would be stepping out into the middle of the road. On a magazine rack in the lobby of the hotel, there is a copy of Time magazine's 1992 Man of the Year with Bill Clinton on its cover.

[edit] Similar films

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Review at RottenTomatoes. Retrieved on 2006-12-21.

[edit] External links

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