# I finally saw Hotel Rwanda **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 6, 2005, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668 "2005-02-06T17:08:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/21 "2005-02-07T19:36:19Z")
**Diogenes** , those scenes really struck me, too. Especially the first one about going back to eating dinner. Because I know that even if I had been more aware of world events back in 1994, I would have been exactly that way. I would have read about it, shrugged, figured I couldn’t do anything about it, and returned to my life. Sad, really. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/22 "2005-02-07T20:04:10Z")
Dallaire said in an interview (which I either read in Maclean’s or the Globe and Mail) that he was never drinking in Rwanda, because he was always working. If you’re in New York, he’s giving two talks this Friday. Books for Breakfast Series Friday, February 11, 8 am Carnegie Council - Merrill House 170 East 64th Street (between Lexington and 3rd Aves) Info: (212) 838-4120 or email: [info@cceia.org](mailto:info@cceia.org) The Canadian Conversation Series Presents: Lt. General Roméo Dallaire in Conversation with Samantha Power (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide) Friday, February 11, 6-7:30 pm World Policy Institute New School University Tishman Auditorium at the New School 66 West 12th Street (between 5th Avenue and Avenue of the Americas) Info/RSVP: (212) 596-1663 or email: [rsvp@uppernorthside.org](mailto:rsvp@uppernorthside.org) ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/23 "2005-02-08T15:25:44Z")
I saw it this past weekend too. I was horrified by much of it, but only one scene made me cry, and it wasn’t one of the horrifying ones: It was at the end, when Paul and Tatiana found their nieces alive and safe. This might be a question better for GD or GQ, but the movie suggests that the Belgian colonial rulers established the distinction between Tutsis and Hutus, and it was based simply on looks and perceived intelligence. Is the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis really as arbitrary and recent as that? I haven’t followed the links in this thread yet, but I will, in case they contain the answer. Oh, and if y’all liked Sophie Okonedo in this, you should see _Dirty Pretty Things,_ in which she has a small but very well-done role. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/24 "2005-02-20T06:05:59Z")
Sorry to resurrect a slightly old thread, but i saw this movie tonight and just had to chime in. It was fantastic and depressing at the same time, and Don Cheadle more than made up for his desperately awful attempt at a British accent in _Oceans 11_. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > One is the scene where the photograper played by Joachim Phoenix has just shot footage of people being massacred with machetes and Paul (Cheadle) tells him that now the west will have to intervene, “…how can they see this and not intervene?” > > Then Phoenix tells him, “I think they’re going to look at this footage, say ‘my God, that’s horrible,’ then go right on eating their dinner.” This was the line that struck me, too. For those who haven’t yet seen it, do yourself a favor. But be warned, it’s not a movie to see if you’re planning on a jovial night out afterwards. I went and saw it in a group of five, and we planned on going for a few drinks in a bar after the film. Well, when we got out, both my wife and two of our friends were too upset to do any socialising, so we all piled in the car and drove home. ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/25 "2005-02-20T17:33:19Z")
How much of the movie was made up? I read _We Wish to Inform…_ and a lot things in movie that happen to Paul and his family that are not in the book, but you would think they would be. There are also discriptions of events that are very different from the way Paul discribed them in the book. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/26 "2005-02-20T18:07:42Z")
Paul himself was a consultant on the film, so you’d hope that even things that didn’t actually happen were consistent with reality. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/27 "2005-02-20T19:38:43Z")
Not only that, but when making a movie based on true events, the producer and director often take a certain amount of license in terms of compressing events, or taking events that happened to one person and adding them to the story of a different person. It could be that everything in the movie is based on a real account of what happened, but that certain episodes have been moved around or reassigned for the sake of dramatic flow and continuity. ---
**Author:** ![AmericanMaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@AmericanMaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmericanMaid)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/28 "2005-04-30T02:26:51Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > There were two scenes in the movie which stuck out the most for me and they were not scenes of violence. > > One is the scene where the photograper played by Joachim Phoenix has just shot footage of people being massacred with machetes and Paul (Cheadle) tells him that now the west will have to intervene, “…how can they see this and not intervene?” > > Then Phoenix tells him, “I think they’re going to look at this footage, say ‘my God, that’s horrible,’ then go right on eating their dinner.” > The other was the scene where Nick Nolte is telling Paul how the west really feels; > > “They think you’re dirt…you’re not even niggers…you’re Africans.” > This was a very shaming film. **Diogenes** , I just saw this film and I completely agree. This movie turned me into a sobbing mess. Beyond the feelings of shame and anger, I felt the need to do something. So, I’m now a member of Amnesty International. My first thought after the movie ended, “Where the hell was I when this happened?” It turns out I was a high school junior. The more I learn about what was going on in the 90’s, the more sickened and ashamed I am about the blissful ignorance I wallowed in. For a while I believed that the Clinton years were a golden era of peace and prosperity. That belief is utterly and completely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/29 "2005-04-30T02:53:26Z")
I just watched it tonight and I thought Don Cheadle & Sophie Okonedo were both fantastic. It made me cry without being a tear-jerker. I hate Speilberg for shamelessly and transparently manipulating his audience’s emotions, but this film got the tears without doing that. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/30 "2005-04-30T03:56:56Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > This might be a question better for GD or GQ, but the movie suggests that the Belgian colonial rulers established the distinction between Tutsis and Hutus, and it was based simply on looks and perceived intelligence. > > Is the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis really as arbitrary and recent as that? I haven’t followed the links in this thread yet, but I will, in case they contain the answer. I went into this just a bit in an old GD thread: _Just as an aside and to add to **I Know Lots** ’ account - the Hutu were agriculturalists that entered the region somewhere between the 5th and 11th century C.E., whereas the Tutsi were pastoralists that arrived after the 14th century ( largely peacefully, apparently, and over time ). Gradually the Tutsi became politically dominant. However it is worth noting that by modern times, what had originally been an ethnic/cultural division had become essentially a class structure based on occupation ( agricultural vs. cattle-owning landlords ) and economic status. i.e. Tutsi and Hutu today are much more a intermingled people ( though it is often claimed that Tutsi are tall and thin and Hutu shorter and squatter, in fact for many you apparently can’t tell the difference ). Indeed it was once possible for “Hutus” to become “Tutsis” simply by moving up the economic chain - There was some ( however limited ) fluidity to the social dynamics between the two groups. This ended in the 1930’s when the Belgians began enforcing ethnic identifiers._ …and later: \*As I pointed out earlier in this thread, the Belgians exacerbated “racial” ( or class, if you prefer, there is a fine and amorphous line in this case ) tensions. The Belgians bought into the scientific racism of the day and became convinced that the dominant Tutsi must represent a “superior race” that while obviously inferior to Europeans, were superior to the Hutu. Based on this “Hamitic hypothesis” ( i.e. all “civilized” African societies were based on invading “Hamites” - lapsed “Christian Ethiopians” ), they imposed a rigid classification system that placed the Tutsi on the top, granting them all local leadership and educational opportunities, which were denied to the Hutus. In otherwords they took an unequal society with nonetheless permeable ethnic barriers and transformed it into a much more polarized society with **im** permeable barriers. Denied the outlet of social mobility ( i.e. “Hutu” rising in economic status to become “Tutsi”, “Tutsi” falling in status to become “Hutu”, as previously was possible ), the stage was set for a deep ethnic hatred based on a locked-in inequality. The Belgians certainly deserve a share of the blame.\* From this thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=157493](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=157493) - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2005, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/31 "2005-04-30T21:21:45Z")
> [@Kel Varnsen - Latex Division](#): > > How much of the movie was made up? We’re talking months ago now, but just after I posted in this thread the first time I saw a news article about Paul Rusesabagina speaking at a church near me. He said the movie was totally true to the real events. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/32 "2005-05-01T12:27:09Z")
That’s good to know, **Marley23**. I’m envious of you hearing him speak. Are he, his wife, his children and his nieces still living in Belgium? ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668/33 "2005-05-01T14:09:48Z")
I really want to see this movie now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-hotel-rwanda/288668.md?page=1)