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From: TB
Category: Films
Date: 06 March 2005
http://www.mgm.com/ua/hotelrwanda/intro.html
Now Rwanda has it's own Schindler's List. By that I mean a sentimental distorting telling of a genocide through the exceptional and redeeming microcosmic portrait. Schindler's list came out a year before the Rwandan massacres and it didn't prevent them, so you can stop with the bad art justified by raised awareness argument. However... in spite of caveats, I suppose this film is a way in for many to at least some interest in what happened, and a tiny superficial liberal glow of pleasure through pain perhaps can be of some benefit somehow, I hope.
As art it's not great, too many cliched characters and wooden lines, Cheadle is good, the woman playing his wife bad. The film picks up pace and tension as it goes along, and I found myself enjoying being genuinely moved by the end. Reservations about hero ( I know its based on a true story) being a white rich person's hotel manager, only those that work for the master race can become civilsed Africans? It made me care enough to order a book from Amazon about Rwanda, so at least it's good for the economy. The next Genocide will still proceed in the usual manner.
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