Jan 15, 2006 10:43 AM
3208 Views
(Updated Jan 24, 2006 11:15 PM)
I caught this movie at the Pune International Film Festival just yesterday.
The movie hall which was showing it, was a good 45 minutes drive from our places, but by the end of the movie, everyone was happy that we took the trip.
Hotel Rwanda is a movie which takes us through a true story of a Paul Rusesabagina - who is the house manager of a Four Star hotel and houses more than thousand tutsi refugees in his hotel to save them from the Hutu Militia.
Let me further explain.
The story is from 1994 - when Rwanda was torn up between 2 opposing camps - the Tutsis and the Hutus.
The Hutus take over the country and start killing all Tutsi people - especially the children to stop the next generation of the Tutsis.
''The movie depicts the very enigmatic nature of Africa and its countries - which can be both, extremely beautiful as well as extremely violent at the same time.
The movie plays around the incident when the entire world turned a blind eye on the thousands of refugees during one of the worst atrocrities in the african history.
When the entire world turned the other way during the mass genocides and slayings of africans, Paul stood up and played his part in saving thousands of people from definite extermination.
The lead role of Paul Rusesabagina is played by Don Cheadle who does stunning work which lets you empathize with the main protagonist without any effort.
The other main characters are played by Xolani Mali as the policeman, Sophie Okonedo as Paul's wife, Nick Nolte as the UN Colonel Oliver, Joaquin Phoenix as a member of International Press.
All of them gel well together, play their part to the T and as a result are able to bring to you the very disturbing pictures of the struggle taking place and how the world reacts to these things.
The cinematography and the editing of the movie was extremely well done and no one moved a bit during the entire length of the movie - which at 2 hours is a bit long for an English film.
Surprisingly, even without showing a lot of gore and violence, the director is able to capture the essence of every situation and transport us to that place.
The movie overall is extremely well done - and I am sure will be there in one of your ''best movies made'' list once you have seen it.
It had been nominated for 3 oscars including best actor in lead role, best actress in supporting role and best screenplay.
In the end, Hotel Rwanda is an extremely hard hitting, powerful movie which one needs to see to really know what goes on behind the superficial news that we see now and then - and what people actually go through.
