Hutu Rwanda
In one sense Hotel Rwanda was one of the most expensive movies I've ever seen. As afterwards, when I got home, I made that contribution to Tsunami Relief that I'd been promising myself. If you're one of those people who has the cush-life, like I do, you'll come out of this movie with at least a modicum of white guilt.
Don Cheadle is worth the price of the ticket, plus the contribution to whatever... Otherwise, in a perverse way, the movie is fairly entertaining. I don't think you'll get bored. In a way, this movie was like Lost In Translation, where you get a 2 hr vacation in an exotic foreign country and where you get to stay in a 5 star hotel... (Don't you wish you had the money?) Though unlike that movie, where essentially nothing is happening, here, the world is coming to an end...
The movie has an underlying theme of white guilt and is something of a rare breed: a political movie. As I said, I walked out of the movie feeling that white guilt, but I must say that since then I've been questioning whether it was really fair in its questioning of white responsibility. At least it only questions it, and it is otherwise peppered with honorable and courageous white people, so it was fairly evenhanded. Nevertheless, it points out that the difference between the Hutus and Tutsis was not tribal as was widely reported in the press, but rather this was a segregation that the belgians (those nasty belgians) had imposed upon the people while it was still a colony. It otherwise brings up repeatedly the question of why the U.N. didn't step in to do something about the slaughter, and this was explicitly argued by Nick Nolte in one scene, to wit: the antipathy to the situation was racially motivated and perpetrated by the west. It was somewhat this arguement that I took exception to as I reflected on the movie this week; i.e.: intervention, which is what he was suggesting the U.N./western nations should do, isn't the easiest, nor always wisest solution to problems. Given the facts, in this particular case, I do believe it may have been able to stem the blood flow, but given results from other 'interventions' I'm not surprised by the 'caution' shown by Bill Clinton and others (oh, you get to see a picture of Bill Clinton at least once in the background...). In any event it did make me think, which I guess is a good thing.
Don Cheadle is worth the price of the ticket, plus the contribution to whatever... Otherwise, in a perverse way, the movie is fairly entertaining. I don't think you'll get bored. In a way, this movie was like Lost In Translation, where you get a 2 hr vacation in an exotic foreign country and where you get to stay in a 5 star hotel... (Don't you wish you had the money?) Though unlike that movie, where essentially nothing is happening, here, the world is coming to an end...
The movie has an underlying theme of white guilt and is something of a rare breed: a political movie. As I said, I walked out of the movie feeling that white guilt, but I must say that since then I've been questioning whether it was really fair in its questioning of white responsibility. At least it only questions it, and it is otherwise peppered with honorable and courageous white people, so it was fairly evenhanded. Nevertheless, it points out that the difference between the Hutus and Tutsis was not tribal as was widely reported in the press, but rather this was a segregation that the belgians (those nasty belgians) had imposed upon the people while it was still a colony. It otherwise brings up repeatedly the question of why the U.N. didn't step in to do something about the slaughter, and this was explicitly argued by Nick Nolte in one scene, to wit: the antipathy to the situation was racially motivated and perpetrated by the west. It was somewhat this arguement that I took exception to as I reflected on the movie this week; i.e.: intervention, which is what he was suggesting the U.N./western nations should do, isn't the easiest, nor always wisest solution to problems. Given the facts, in this particular case, I do believe it may have been able to stem the blood flow, but given results from other 'interventions' I'm not surprised by the 'caution' shown by Bill Clinton and others (oh, you get to see a picture of Bill Clinton at least once in the background...). In any event it did make me think, which I guess is a good thing.
posted by quantom qurkington at 7:30 AM
1 Comments:
I've always liked Don Cheadle, even before I knew he was Don Cheadle. He kept showing up in movies in small roles, doing a really good job. Glad to see he's moving up in the movie world.
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