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Hotel Rwanda makes for a compelling dramatization of the real life heroic efforts of Paul Rusesabagina, played superbly by Don Cheadle, to save his family and other Tutsi refugees from the hands of Hutu militia. Sophie Okonedo, who plays Pauls wife Tatiana, also gives a very moving performance.
Inevitably, the film will be criticized as a sanitization of the actual events that occurred in 1994 in Rwanda. From ones perspective, that may or may not be a fair assessment. I found that its focus was mainly to tell the personal story of hotel manager Rusesabagina and his efforts to save as many people as possible from genocide and not so much as to document the brutality, rape and other atrocities that led to the deaths of close to a million Rwandans.
Besides, is showing more blood, disturbing images and violence make for a more compelling film? If so, then that same film probably would have suffered the same fate as the actual events it was based on less seen and eventually forgotten by a lot of people. But at its present PG-13 state, director Terry George makes the achievement of getting the story and events told once and for all and the film viewed by as many people as possible without becoming too disturbing.
Hotel Rwanda is a story of hope and perseverance but more importantly, its story is a shameful example of the failure of the international community for diplomatic and political intervention that might have possibly limited or avoided the ensuing deaths.
One can only hope that present-day Sudan will not suffer this same fate.
~Edwin
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