Hotel Rwanda

I don't remember any details from watching The Killing Fields. I saw it when I was in middle school with my Dad at the local single screen theater in the 80's. What I do remember is that it was horrific and that I was stunned by the sheer volume of death. Hotel Rwanda left me with that same feeling. Don Cheadle plays the local manager of a fancy hotel that becomes a refuge for Hutu and Tutsi alike during the genocide in the 90's. But the details are not what will stick. The fantastical count of deaths is horrific and the sheer disregard for human life is unimaginable. That people live through such events, that children grow up, that perpetrators continue to be fed by their hatred into a deeper hatred... unimaginable for most of us. In this particular case, the fact that it was unimaginable is exactly what led to no response from the west. I wonder, though, what response would have actually led to change? A military intervention would be another in a long line of military interventions, that would exacerbate tensions and enhance violence and hatred for years to come. How does the cycle of violence on a global scale begin to break? Hopefully films like this expose to "the powerful" the insanity of violence and begins to allow cracks to form in "the system".
4 stars (out of 5)