Hotel Rwanda - The challenges of historicising and commercializing genocide
Author(s)
Adhikari, Mohamed
Abstract
The paper critically analyzes the film Hotel Rwanda, which is based on a true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a house manager of a luxury hotel in Kigali who used his position to save 1,268 victims of the Rwandan genocide. The author finds the film moving and often accurate in its portrayal of many actual events. At the same time, he finds the film uneven in quality and with serious flaws. In addition to the many examples of bias and misrepresentation, the author finds the main distortion of the historical truth to be through omission. The author argues that the film underplays the level of violence and fails to present the full story within an appropriate historical and socio-political context. The author concludes that the filmmaker’s over-concern with the film’s marketability undermines the message and deprives Paul Rusesabagina’s story of its power.
