I went to see Hotel Rwanda this weekend. Since then I have wanted to blog about it but I haven’t been exactly sure what to say. What can you really say that will say more than the movie does?

For those who aren’t familiar with the movie, it is most easily described as an African Schindler’s List. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda a manager of a 4 star hotel sheltered over 1200 refugees. The film highlights the rascism in the way European and North American countries dealt (or declined to deal) with the crisis. I couldn’t help but think that the same thing is happening in Sudan now and again most western countries are ignoring it.

My only complaint about the movie was that it wasn’t violent enough. I hate violent movies. I was ready to close my eyes if the movie got violent. But this is a movie about the murder of one million people. Most of them were killed by being hacked to death with machetes. The movie mostly implies the violence. But there is one scene where a film crew brings back footage. It showed (I thought) men with machetes gently pushing people down to the ground where they would then kill them. But, from the dialogue of the people watching the clip it was supposed to show brutal killings of standing people. How did I miss that?

I recommend this movie highly. It has really made me think over the past few days about the attitudes of countries towards Africa and about the cruelity of some people.