Hotel: Hope
The first movie i watched this week was Hotel Rwanda. Wanted to watch Bad Education at first but somehow they didnt show sneaks. However, Im kinda glad cos this award-winner (the AGF People's Choice award of the Toronto International Film festival) was wonderfully tear-jerking.
Don Cheadle plays the hero Paul Rusesabagina, who is
the hotel manager to be. He is the one who risked his life to shelter the Tutsis in his four-star Hotel Des Milles Collines in the capital city of Kigali. At first, u may find him to be inflexible and selfish, as he flatters and bribes the generals into favours. In the events of the killings, he only wanted his family to be safe, not caring if others were slaughtered. But slowly, he began to see that the others were human too. With their own families and friends, with their own daughters and sons. So alike him in colour, in language, in religion and in nature. However, all they were different were in their class and for that, they were being massacred.
U know, I shed a tear in the middle of the show. Two in fact cos i have a pair of eyes mah. Anyway, this is only the 2nd time i've ever cried for a movie. The slashing and bloodshed was sick and disgusting, but it is often in times of such dire straits that heroes are born. He was no swashbuckling Arnold Schwarzennegar with machine guns or parangs but with his calm and stubborn demeanour, he managed to get the 1000 odd Tutsis through the genocide.
I thought Don Cheadle was mesmerising. He was so convincing and touching at the same time that im still in awe.
U know, movies only succeed if they are able to provoke reaction or thought and this definitely did. Halfway thru the show, im thinking: What the hell have i been doing for the past 20 years? There is so so much going on around us and all we do is think about buying a new shirt or where are we going for dinner later. Its so sad that all of us are so un-initiated. Its not that we are apathetic cos we do feel for them but its just that inertia that bogs us down into thinking that we cannot do anything.
The Cameraman: Im sorry that u saw the pictures. (of the senseless slashings of the Tutsis by the Hutus) If i knew u were there, i wouldnt..
Paul: Don't worry sir. Instead Im glad that i saw it. At least i know that when the world sees it, they will react and know that it isnt just some civil war. They will be forced to help.
Cameraman: I don't think it works that way. Yah sure the folks will sit up and shake their heads when they see it on the news. But then they will continue on with their dinner or go back to their lives like nothing has happened.
