Hotel Rwanda... a short film review

I just watched the 2004 film, Hotel Rwanda for the first time tonight as part of my research weekend. I have been avoiding this film for years because as far as I was concerned, it would be yet another Hollywood film about an African conflict that is completely out of political context and littered with "senseless" torture and killings. 

To my disappointment, Hotel Rwanda lived up to my expectations. It falls in line with The Last King of Scotland and Blood Diamond as another "true life" African horror flick complete with a noble savage, white guilt and black demons. 

In his essay entitled, "Hotel Rwanda: too Much Heroism, too Little History - or Horror?" Mohamed Adhikari puts it in a nutshell for us:

"Hotel Rwanda's simplistic approach to the genocide is more likely to perpetuate rather than dispel stereotypes of Africa as a place of senseless violence and tribal animosities. The absence of a well-founded explanation of the genocide is bound to result in many viewers falling back on shop-worn, racist conventions of Western attitudes toward Africa. Indeed, the film inadvertently reinforces such mystification."  

My research weekend is shaping up already!