Hotel Rwanda: Why won't any hotel give ME good scotch?

Don Cheadle is so cool. He's a great example of what a star should be. What that is, is the quality of being different in every movie, and yet always remaining that person. Don Cheadle, like Mark Wahlberg, I was realizing the other day, is always very Don Cheadle (or, ya know, very Mark Wahlberg), but definitelly creates a character each time. Or like Gene Hackman--they're basically character actors, and yet you always know you'll get a certain quality form them. A certain "them-ness" that is reassuring, like an old friend, while also a guarantee of a great stamp--like a seal of greatness. Not that the films they are in will necessarilly be good, but the actor themselves will be an exciting while comforting presence. Like a new album by an favorite band.

Hotel Rwanada was a really powerful film (thank you for visiting my website, here at NoFuckingDuh.com). It forced us into the scary situation that millions of people were deep within for 100 days. A situation that's sort of a horrifyingly real version of Dawn of the Dead. In that surreal mess, everyone needed to do anything they could to get anything even slightly better than death. Such a basic dimension of life, that in this case was completely unnecessary. One of the characters (Dube) asks Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle) why would anyone actually go through with killing (what turned out to be) a million people. Paul says that they are angry and insane. And that's clearly the case, but I found myself wondering if that was it. And I think the insanity is actually more a mental seperation between how excited the Interhamwe soldiers were to be a part of something huge and powerful, and what was actually happening at their hands. It's not so much an insanity, I suppose, as it is a phenomenal ability to block off the context of the situation. I mean, that's the only way anyone could do any of the things they did (and so many people do around the world): somehow convert the people being killed into objects, or concepts. We do it everytime we get pissed at a slow-moving car on the freeway, and we speed past it: we aren't thinking that it's a person we're scaring by honking and blazing past, we've lowered the person, and their car, to an object to avoid. Or when we're horribly rude to a retail employee: "I'm not getting the service I deserve, so I will scream at this thing-in-a-uniform in fornt of me!". Not that you or I or anyone we know is ever going to kill anyone (let alone a million, for chrissakes), just that the human mind if capable of anything, and I believe that with enough propaganda and a desperate enough living situation, any human being who has ever lived is capable of what went on in Rwanda, and what still goes on in Congo, and every other place. We are all angels, we are all devils. Keep in mind your power, and use it for good.

The film also sort of whispers the question: why do these things keep happening? And why aren't the incredibly rich countries swooping in to obliterate the possibility of it happening? I understand that we got screwed in Somalia, so we were all scared to do anything for Rwanda, but what kind of pussy explanation is that? And what of Sudan? I'm not particularly interested in adopting a political tone here on this movie journal, but then I guess I don't feel it's in any particular political camp's interest, any more than any other political camp, to want to lessen suffering, and extend love to anyone we are capable of reaching. It isn't all that amazingly noble a thought, that if you can help, you should. And especially in Africa. As Fela Kuti said, and I paraphrase, why is the birthplace of our species getting shafted the hardest?

The reason, obviously, we can ignore it, is put very well by Joaquin Phoenix (that name is ridiculous to type), when his character says that violent, disturbing footage on the news, well get Americans to stop eating their dinner, and say "Oh God, isn't that aweful?" and go right back to their dinner. We need, as individuals, to reconnect to that idea that the act of witnessing people being hurt, needs to result in the reaction of going to help them. If our country is so rad and cowboy-core, then why aren't we chivalrously aiding damsels in distress, like say our poorest slums, or the poorest slums of the world, knownas Third World countries. We need to put some soul and heart into our national policy (so, first as individuals, then as a nation), and do things because they need to be done--our principles dictate so, instead of this intellectual cost-benefit bullshit, where we decide that the country in question can't do anything for us, so why would we do anything for them? If you really need an answer, then here: the poor kid whose country we rebuild could become the next Heisenberg. Or the next Paul McCartney. Or the next love of your life. We are all standing at the crux of an infinite set of fifth-dimensional paths, and in our hands is the choice to bring an infinite number of possiblities to reality. Choose life. Choose love. Give, and begin to live.

Anyway, back to my boy Cheadle, I love that fact that the only reason these people survived, is because Paul Rusesabagina is a badass. His skill in constantly keeping up a professional facade, in knowing exactly what to say to keep tensions from rising, his general ability manipulate people without them knowing it. To the point where, as Ebert said, a warlord would act calm in the hotel lobby just becuase it would feel uncouth to raise a fuss, and Paul can actually turn a tense situation around, so that he's making demans to a man holding a gun to his face! Total badass. And that makes him a hero. My hero.

Extra points for Jean Reno.