Hotel Rwanda

In a movie like Hotel Rwanda, I think realism is paramount to the effect of the movie. I would say that this movie did rather well in that regard, though the situation it followed lended itself to be a little more tame. In making a movie like this, the purpose is to affect people and change their outlook on a situation and/or ideology. Watering down the true events will impede the storytellers' ability to affect the audience. The movie consisted of a lot of political struggle and less exposure to the horrors of the genocide. That's fine if the goal is to tell an engaging story, but it seemed that some of the reality of the situation was lost. In most situations like that in Rwanda, the vast majority of the population doesn't stay in a five-star hotel. I thought more attention should have been paid to the mass killings instead just showing a lot of soldiers that rarely did more than threaten.

While I think Hotel Rwanda did a fine job of telling the story of the Hutus and Tutsies, we must realize that the situation happened over ten years ago. This is an unfortunate resounding theme in these movies; they affect people greatly, but only after the situation is resolved. No movie has been made about Darfur or North Korea, and to my knowledge, none were made about Nazi Germany, Iraq during Saddam's regime, or Afghanistan during the Taliban's reign while they were still current. Mass media has extraordinary power over popular opinion, but it rarely utilizes it while it can still do some good. One could say that Fahrenheit 9/11 accomplished this, but I would contend that this may be a favorite movie of the Muslim extremists, which is counter-productive to our goal.