Hotel Rwanda

4-17-05
By Mark Stokes

Hotel Rwanda transcends mere storytelling

Every now and then, a film comes along with the power to shake its viewer from complacency. It’s a film that so genuinely presents a previously ignored truth that its audience is left weak from weeping but invigorated with the desire to make some significant change.

For many, that film was The Passion of the Christ. For me, it was Hotel Rwanda.

Hotel Rwanda (rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and brief strong language) follows the real-life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandese hotel manager whose self-preservative worldview is challenged by the violence that erupts in the African nation around him. This challenge ultimately leads him to save the lives of 1,268 refugees during the 1994 genocide that saw nearly a million of the Tutsi people slaughtered by the Hutu militia.

It seems that this is the year of black supporting actors rising to the top as Don Cheadle, like Ray’s Jamie Foxx, proves that he can add much more to the screen than mere comic relief. Along with fellow Academy Award-nominated actor Sophie Okonedo (playing his wife, Tatiana), Cheadle successfully portrays the gradual emotional breakdown of a character whose culture and social standing require him to look strong while surrounded by acts of inhumanity and sheer evil.

Though similar to 2002’s Tears of the Sun in subject matter, Hotel Rwanda differs greatly in content. Using Alfred Hitchcock’s theory that the human imagination is more effective at conceiving atrocities than any special-effects department, Hotel Rwanda’s writer/director chooses to avoid in-your-face violence or any direct confrontation with the heinous acts of the militia. Though Tears of the Sun shows the severed limbs and bullet-riddled bodies, Hotel Rwanda’s camera seems to be so horrified by the events that it turns away—seeking to escape machete-wielding crowds or the mounds of gnarled bodies whenever possible. The result is that we, through the eyes of that squeamish observer, encounter the events first-hand, deciding what to look at and what to ignore in much the same way as anyone else in that situation.
Though Tears of the Sun is a well-made film with a heartfelt message, its focus on the grittiness of the warring in Nigeria turns it into another Bruce Willis action flick—complete with a lily-white hero saving the beautiful damsel while being shot at and blown up, ultimately saying, “We Americans are stronger and we have more bullets, so cut out all that fighting.”

In contrast, Hotel Rwanda uses an African national as its central figure—someone in the midst of the turmoil with more invested emotionally in the situation. We not only see Paul as someone willing to sacrifice his life (surrounded by a hotel staff of potential Judases), but we see him as a real person—initially trying to lay low and dismiss the situation as “someone else’s problem.” We see him as a man with a deep, enduring love for his family, but a man who ultimately chooses to put that family on the line to save a group of complete strangers he calls his “neighbors.” This selfless example is at the heart of Christian belief, bringing to mind several scriptures key to Christianity (see Galatians 5:14, Luke 10:36-37, John 15:13 and Mark 3:33-35).

The tension created in the film is incredibly effective, slowly raising the stakes and our own anxieties as Paul passes through armed mobs, from one close call to the next and closer to execution with each passing moment. It’s an ingenious means of storytelling that draws us in with a likable hero, grips us with its dramatic tension and strangles our perception with the reality of what’s going on in the rest of the world. This gradual crescendo of feeling doesn’t hit us with spurting blood like Tears of the Sun or fly-eyed, swollen-stomached children like your average sponsor-a-child commercial. It hits us with reality—a reality that’s visually bearable enough to keep us from turning away, but one that’s so painful to bear, we must do something.

But what can we do? Isn’t relief work and tyranny-crushing the work of the government? Well, not always. In Rwanda’s case, no outside force was willing to risk its soldiers for a land with no commodities or exportable goods. Strategically, the potential loss (soldiers’ lives) was greater than the potential gain (a weak pat on the back and a handful of tea leaves).

It’s a sad reality in government and military strategy. One government can’t be there for everyone who needs it. That’s not its job.

It’s our job. It’s a job for we who claim to pursue “pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God” (James 1:27) but fill our lives with empty pleasures, ignoring the orphans and widows around us. It’s for those of us who can afford weekly fast-food lunches but have “no money” when the opportunity arises to provide for someone in genuine need.

The lives of these helpless, hopeless people lie in the hands of we who expend our energies by fighting “the good fight” against shifty-eyed liberals or self-absorbed fundamentalists. While we seek to preserve God’s kingdom through ceaseless words of hate and self-righteousness, the rest of the world waits. And hopes. And starves.

The need indeed is great—greater than any one person, church or denomination can meet. If we are to fulfill our obligations to “the least of these,” we must put aside our stubborn agendas, raze retroactive walls of separation and unify as the one true body of Christ.

For some, that may mean donating money. Others may need to approach the needy face-to-face, giving selflessly of their time. Still others may need to sacrifice the pride that has led them into spiritual sterility. Whatever that pursuit of unity may entail, it’s a pursuit that’s worthwhile—a pursuit that can save lives. If Paul Rusesabagina can save thousands with marginal resources and the daily risk of death, what more are we, who are blessed with excess upon excess, required to give?

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