Hotel Rwanda - For livia

Do you consider the ending of 'Hotel Rwanda' is realistic, or is it too happy? Has 'Hotel Rwanda' been 'Hollywoodized?'

The 2004 film ‘Hotel Rwanda’ directed by Terry George focuses on the cold truths and its disturbing account of the genocide. The film achieves the ability to simultaneously shock viewers. In order to produce the film, joint collective efforts were made by Hollywood companies such as United Artists and Lions Gate Films. It was made an independent film which means that initially it was only released in some theatres. The film successfully won awards including Academy Award nominations for best actor, best supporting actress and best Original screenplay.

In 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place. During the course of the 100 days that this shocking incident occurred, at least 800,000 people were killed In Rwanda and other countries did nothing to stop it. Belgian occupants established the entire social separation of the Rwandan people that helped provoke the massacre and added more shame to the situation. What’s more is that whilst the rest of the world was debating the difference between ‘genocide’ and the ‘acts of genocide’, innocent lives were being put in danger and the Rwandan people were dying for no reason.

Paul Rusesabaina (Don Cheadle) has played in many Hollywood films as a leading role such as the film ‘2012’ which was released in early 2010. His character in Hotel Rwanda is the manager of the ‘Sabena Hotel des Mille Collines and he is part of the Hutu. However his wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) is Tutsi. This obviously causes controversy with the Hutu extremists. As the political situation in the country worsens, Paul and his family witness friends, family and neighbours being killed in the terrifying ethnic violence. In order to rescue these people Paul asks for favours from people with influence so that his family were kept safe. He bribed them with money and alcohol.

As the civil war erupted, Rwandan Army officers threatened Paul and his neighbours however he barely negotiates and brings everyone back to the hotel. Word gets out and more refugees come to the hotel from the exploited United Nations camp, the Red Cross and the orphanages. Paul has now been put under so much responsibility to take care of these people, being the source of strength to his family whilst also continuing the appearance of a functioning high-class hotel.

The UN Peacekeeping forces are led by Canadian Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte -who has played in other leading Hollywood films such as 48 hours with co-star Eddie Murphy) was powerless to take assertive action towards the Interhamwe because they are outlawed to intervene in the genocide. Then the foreign Nationals are evacuated, but the Rwandans are left behind. I remember during this point in the film I became quite teary and I captured the emotions of the characters. When the UN forces try to evacuate a group of refugees, which included Paul’s family they were turned back. Just as I was beginning to think that all hope was gone and the film was about to have an unhappy ending, Paul pleads with the Rwandan Army General for some help but the bribes no longer worked. Paul refuses to give up, so he did something risky and blackmails the General with threats of being strained as a war criminal. Success! As the family and hotel refugees are finally able to leave the hotel and travel through retreating crowds of refugees and militia to reach safety behind the Tutsi rebel lines.

Do I think Hotel Rwanda is ‘Too Happy’? I would say no because I did shed a few tears in some parts of the film even though I am extremely soppy when it comes to films like this anyway! However it also made me feel good towards the end that the people in Rwanda were rescued by a man with not too much power. As the film was based on a true story that occurred in 1994 I was oblivious to any of this happening as I had only just been born that year. Whilst writing this review I stated that ‘at least 800,000 people were killed In Rwanda and other countries did nothing to stop it’. Whilst my family was celebrating my birth and other families were celebrating the birth of their child, there was a civil war going on that killed over 800,000 innocent lives.

Hollywood is known as a sunny, glossy, plastic and Upper Class City. However the films defer depending on the Genre. Hotel Rwanda being a drama film fit its genre perfectly. So do I think that ‘Hotel Rwanda’ been ‘Hollywoodized’? I would say that it was a great film, with exceptional A List Actors and Actresses’ and high-quality effects so in that way it was perfectly hollywoodized. The producers chose Don Cheadle as the lead role and he played it perfectly, they could have picked more of a well known actor or one who has a body of a supermodel but they obviously picked the one that fit the role perfectly, and there was no mistake made there.

Clay animation

How is Clay Motion created? - Well, you create your characters with clay and place them in position and in the background that you want. You then shoot an image of that and make a tiny adjustment and then..... shot an image of that & so on... :). Usually claymation runs at about 10-12 frames per second instead of the more usual 24 frames per second used in films.

The video below is a clay animation film for a sports advertisement for 'Buffalo Bills' which is an american Football team.
In the future i would definitely want to achieve something similar to this. The creators used clay to create every single one of the props which i can imagine would have been very time consuming to make and then film.

The first clay animation film was 1933's film 'King Kong' The fight scene between the giant ape and a tyrannosaurus rex was achieved using claymation, or stop-motion, animation techniques.
The most famous exponent of these films nowadays is Nick Park of Aardman Animation, the creator of the infamous Wallace and Gromit characters.

Heres an example of clay animation that me and some classmates created in one of our lessons!
There are a lot of differences in comparison from the film i created and the film that in the above video. No, we did make all of our props out of clay and we only had 2 characters that move unlike the other video where most of the props moved! even the plant! (Which were fully made out of clay ^^). The buffalo bills commercial also used better sound effects and they added much more detail to their characters and props to make it look a bit more realistic.
It was pretty hard to tell that the objects were made by clay in the first video and you have had to have a real eye for the different types of animation techniques to be able to tell that it was a clay animation.