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May. 6th, 2005 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vintage_belleIn case everyone wasn't already aware of this: Hotel Rwanda is the single most powerful movie that's come out in, like, the last six years.
I was bawling in my chair - something I don't normally do, but couldn't help myself this time. I can't believe it didn't get more recognition at the Academy Awards - but I suppose the West doesn't want to be reminded of its total failure to do anything to stop the genocide in Rwanda. I remember not knowing that anything had ever happened at all in Rwanda, let alone a genocide. Joaquin Phoenix's character said it best, really, "They'll say, 'Oh, that's horrible', and go back to eating their dinner."
Paul Rusesabagina is a great man and deserves every kind of respect from everyone, Don Cheadle does a fucking brilliant job playing as him, and Terry George should be praised for undertaking the film at all - not to mention doing a wonderful job of it. The film doesn't play on the genocide for glorified and gratuitous violence, nor is there any souped up Western hero riding into the fray in shining armor. Though some events are dramatized and there is one solely fictional character, the movie doesn't come off as one of those "real-life" movies that you know immediately never happened. It's as though you were a spirit, watching everything happen around you and able to do nothing about it.
It's also a great way to depress yourself.
I was bawling in my chair - something I don't normally do, but couldn't help myself this time. I can't believe it didn't get more recognition at the Academy Awards - but I suppose the West doesn't want to be reminded of its total failure to do anything to stop the genocide in Rwanda. I remember not knowing that anything had ever happened at all in Rwanda, let alone a genocide. Joaquin Phoenix's character said it best, really, "They'll say, 'Oh, that's horrible', and go back to eating their dinner."
Paul Rusesabagina is a great man and deserves every kind of respect from everyone, Don Cheadle does a fucking brilliant job playing as him, and Terry George should be praised for undertaking the film at all - not to mention doing a wonderful job of it. The film doesn't play on the genocide for glorified and gratuitous violence, nor is there any souped up Western hero riding into the fray in shining armor. Though some events are dramatized and there is one solely fictional character, the movie doesn't come off as one of those "real-life" movies that you know immediately never happened. It's as though you were a spirit, watching everything happen around you and able to do nothing about it.
It's also a great way to depress yourself.
