'Hotel Rwanda' offers message for current times

Three Oscar nominations and a fistful of other awards should be enough to recommend "Hotel Rwanda" to filmgoers. The film is nominated for best script, lead actor Don Cheadle garnered a best actor nomination and a best supporting actress nod went to Sophie Okonedo for her role as his wife. But 'Hotel Rwanda' is more: it is a powerful and important film for the world now.

Like Oskar Schindler in World War II, Paul Rusesabagina did not set out to save people. His own basic decency drove him to do it, and his own intelligence and resourcefulness made it possible. Unlike Nazi Germany, where the world had only rumors, there was much more awareness of what was happening in Rwanda in 1994, although the facts that came out afterwards were much worse than anyone thought.

With racial or religious hatreds fueling terrorism and hate speech filling the airwaves, along comes a film about the power of human decency to overcome inhumanity. There is an old saying: All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that men of good will do nothing. "Hotel Rwanda" is a true-life story of a man of good will who did something.

With three Oscar nominations, "Hotel Rwanda" is a film of artistry, but it is also a film for our times.

"Hotel Rwanda" tells the story of a hotel manager who ends up sheltering more than a thousand people in his hotel and saving their lives. The backdrop is one of the more horrific events of the late twentieth century, yet "Hotel Rwanda" is an uplifting, powerful film of inspiration, of simple humanity, that largely spares us the graphic details of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Paul Rusasebagino (Don Cheadle) is the manager of the top hotel in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Paul is a success story, climbing the corporate ladder from modest beginnings to education in hotel management in Europe, and working his way up to run the Hotel Mille Collines, the flagship hotel in the capital. He is good at his job and proud of his skills.

When the president of the country is assassinated, simmering hatred by the ruling Hutus for the Tutsis, who were in charge when the country was a Belgian colony, erupts into violence. The chaos is egged on by hate radio announcers who blame the Tutsis for the assassination and urge their listeners to kill them all in retaliation.

Paul, a Hutu, is married to Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo), a Tutsi, and brings his family to his European-owned hotel to hide them from the killers. At first, the hotel, which caters to wealthy foreigners, seems like a safe haven, an island of sanity where journalists like Jack (Joaquin Phoenix), the head of the U.N. peacekeeping force, Col. Oliver (Nick Nolte), and other Westerners. But soon that changes, as the U.N. pulls out. Col. Oliver fights to keeps a presence, to stop the violence, but is told that the U.N. is a peace keeping, not a peace making, force. As the country deteriorates into madness, the foreigners flee the country and fleeing Rwandans come to the hotel seeking shelter. Abandoned by the outside world, Paul is forced to do things he never imagined to keep his family and those in the hotel alive.

A member of the Hutus, Paul set out only to save his Tutsi wife and their family, but found he could not turn others away, first neighbors and extended family, then more. He saved more than 1,200 people during the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. When his appeal to people's humanity failed, he appealed to their self interest, to turn their goals into his. The film is a powerful, uplifting drama and also a chilling indictment of modern morals which say some people matter more than others and which values profits over people.

The act of bravery from an ordinary man who had no plan to be a hero has much of "Schindler's List" in it, but it is also a story of the power of love and a commentary on a world that values some people more than others. The best historical films remind us of the lessons history should teach us but focus on the human aspect of the events. "Hotel Rwanda" succeeds beautifully in this aim. While the film avoids the graphic approach, it does remind us that neither genocide nor human bravery have vanished.

When the Rwandan genocide began, the world was already focused on the ethnic violence in Eastern Europe between the Serbs and the Bosnians. While the Bosnians cried genocide and demanded the world's attention, a more gruesome manifestation of that inhumanity rose up in Africa, almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. Encouraged by hate radio following the assassination of their president, Hutus began to kill Tutsis or Hutus who tried to stop the killing, a slaughter of the innocents with machetes and fire. An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in those 100 days.

What are we to make of a world that wrings its hands over ethnic war in Europe but hardly seems to respond to the horrific ethnic slaughter in Africa? Sadly, we can not stop war everywhere but seeming to value some peoples over some others just is wrong. This tale of individual courage and cleverness is the tale of humanity that the world needs to hear right now.

Beyond the powerful and meaningful story, "Hotel Rwanda" is a glorious film. It handles the violence with remarkable dignity and cinematic style. The film also focuses on simple human love story between Paul and Tatiana and the traumatic effects on their family.

Don Cheadle is a revelation in the role of a lifetime. His performance as Paul is the strength and fulcrum of the story, and he handles the role with grace and power. Paul's pride in his work and his hotel give way to a new world view, as he realizes the company's view of its African operations. Paul's unassuming, nice guy persona fits well with his role as decent family man but it is his pride in his work, intelligence and leadership skills that allow him to transcend his ordinary life to do what was needed. His deep love for his wife shines in his scenes with Sophie Okonedo. The performance is riveting and astoundingly nuanced. If this role does not bring good things to actor Don Cheadle, there is no justice.

The director, Terry George, uses other roles as counter point to Cheadle's central role and to tell us about the larger frame of the story. Joachim Phoenix's reporter character helps the audience understand the nature of the Hutu and Tutsi conflict.

One of the most chilling aspects of the film is the drumbeat of the hate radio broadcasts whipping up their listeners into "righteous anger," reminding us of the power of such talk.

Rarely do films combine the elements of meaning and artistry as well as "Hotel Rwanda" does. It is a glorious, thought provoking film that should simply be on everyone's must-see list.