Hotel Rwanda

Dear reader,

This essay will be a description of a 'boring' movie, namely Hotel Rwanda. Sometimes I'm just wondering; why are realistic movies boring? In this essay I will try to explain what, from my point of view, can make realistic movies so boring.

First of all there is the movie itself; Hotel Rwanda. I could have taken a lot of other movies as an example as well, but I thought that according to my experience this movie is one of the most striking examples. The movie is about the ethnic conflict in Rwanda, 1994, between the Hutu race and the Tutsi race. The conflict was known for its horrible genocide on a lot of Tutsi Rwandese civilians. The movie shows a moderate and tolerant Hutu hotel manager (based on a true story), who tries to save as many Tutsi people from the Hutu rebels as possible by transforming his hotel into a UN bulwark. After several attacks from Hutu rebels and weak attempts from international peacekeepers to save the Tutsi refugees in the hotel, the manager finally succeeds in getting most refugees to safer areas in the country.

The movie is in some cases shocking and shows in a clear way the different perspectives of any modern war; cruelty, heroism and the ignorance of the western world. The striking difference with other movies is that in this movie, although present, both violence and romance/sex are not playing a major role. The manager is not shown as some strong bullet-spraying war machine but as a smart and caring person who tries to persuade his goal by outsmarting his opponents and thereby risking his own life.

Now again; why is this movie so boring? According to me it is simply because this movie shows real life in its worst conditions. Most movies will show a surreal world that is represented by strong men and beautiful women who change the world. It sorts of makes us willing to be those persons. They show life as an adventure and it makes us forget the real world we are in today. Hotel Rwanda however, together with some other realistic movies, is showing us no mercy in reminding us that we are wrong if we think violence is adventure. Therefore according to me this movie is something that is very worth watching, not for entertainment but to sharpen the mind and create some values.