The greatest movie ever made that I cannot wholly recommend

Hotel Rwanda; 2:01; PG-13, for violence, disturbing images, and strong language; Grade: A

There is a scene in Hotel Rwanda (available on DVD today), in which a daring cameraman, Jack (Joaquin Phoenix), ventures beyond the relative safety of the hotel to capture some gruesome footage of the genocide taking place in the surrounding villages, and returns feeling pessimistic that his efforts will ultimately be for naught. Hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) objects, noting that such horrendous acts caught on tape when shown to the West will surely prompt someone to step in and stop the bloodshed. Jack comments, with sorrow, that the few people in the West who might see the footage will pause and say, “That’s terrible”, then continue eating their dinner. I fear the same fate is destined for Hotel Rwanda.

Hotel Rwanda is a powerful and haunting movie. It literally brought me to tears more than once, and I’m not talking about merely getting choked up a little bit. I’m talking major bawling, and these were not tears of joy.

There are plenty of scenes that will rip away your heart, with taut suspense and enormous emotional impact. Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo (as Mrs. Rusesabagina) both very much deserve their Oscar nominations for acting. In Hotel Rwanda, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, who used his position as hotel manager to save over 1,000 Tutsis, as the bloodshed raged on around them to the tune of over 1 million lost lives, over a span of just a few months. Cheadle brings a depth to his performance that manages to be stoic yet fragile, and subtle but powerful.

Director Terry George keeps the graphic violence to a minimum, allowing for a PG-13 rating. Why he decided to do this is beyond my comprehension. This movie should not be seen by children not yet in their late teens. Even without much blood shown onscreen, Hotel Rwanda is an absolutely horrifying movie. Credit George for creating a tense atmosphere that absorbs the audience into the terror felt by those in the midst of it.

As difficult as it can be to watch, Hotel Rwanda is such an important movie because it highlights the effects that colonialism had on Africa, and reminds Westerners that we have a moral obligation to the continent that we so royally screwed up.

But is this message falling on deaf ears? Even with the boost of an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Hotel Rwanda, over the course of its entire theatrical run, managed to bring in barely $23 mil. That’s $6 mil less than Sin City made last weekend.

Independently produced and distributed, Hotel Rwanda will most likely be seen predominantly by people who make a habit of watching indie movies. Generally speaking, these people have a college education, which of course means that nothing in Hotel Rwanda will be a history lesson to them. So in a sense, this movie is almost preaching to the choir.

What about the people who don’t know what happened in Rwanda just a decade ago? What about the people who have no idea what’s going on in Sudan right now, or the people who actually think we’re spreading “freedom” in Iraq? Those are the people for whom this movie could serve as a major eye-opener, but they’ll probably never watch it, unless their world history teacher shows it to them in class (yes, I’m talking to you, history teachers).

The few of us who do end up watching Hotel Rwanda will be horrified. Most of us will continue eating our dinner.

And that is why it is difficult for me to recommend a movie that is really a masterpiece. If you want to watch it, chances are good that you don’t need to watch it, and will end up feeling completely depressed by it. If you need to watch it, it’s a good bet that you’ve never even heard of it and aren’t going to. It’s a great movie, definitely one of the best of the year, but one that I don’t plan on ever watching again.