Movie Time

Tonight Niks and I watched Hotel Rwanda. It's based on a true story about Paul Rusesabagina, who risked his life to save about 1,200 Tutsis and Hutus who would have been killed during the massacre in Rwanda. Using his connections as a four-star hotel manager, he cajoles, bribes and blackmails military and government officials in his efforts to rescue all these people who have ended up in his hotel. Don Cheadle plays Paul and was nominated for an Oscar, as was Sophie Okonedo. They were both very good. Cheadle was terrific.

There's a scene where a cameraman and reporter show TV footage of horrible genocide of Hutus killing Tutsis, just several hundred yards from the hotel. The main character Paul thanks the cameraman for showing the footage to the world. Paul thinks that the world will come to their resue once they see the carnage. Jack, the camera man, cynically responds with this line:

"After they see this, people are gonna say 'my god that's terrible' and then go on eating their dinners."

And of course that's just what we all did. (I'm blogging instead of eating.)

It's a hard movie to watch, and it doesn't even show the bloody stuff. Really hard, because it's all true, and we did nothing to save these people. About one million were killed. Hard to watch, but a wonderfully well-done movie. Great acting.