Hotel Rwanda (2004)

This film tells a story that history likes to forget, the massacre of one million African lives.
While this is not a traditional movie to watch on my least favorite day of the year, there is still a love story at its core.
Though the backdrop is 1994 Kigali, Rwanda in the immediate aftermath of the President's assassination when the Hutu (one ethnicity) begin to rebel against the Tutsi (the other ethnicity group), it is the love story of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (the great Don Cheadle) who is Hutu and his wife (the equally great Sophie Okonedo) who is Tutsi.
Now, that stuff doesn't matter for Paul who just tries to run the hotel, currying favors with both business and political leaders. He cares about protecting his family and the dignity of the hotel, and will do anything to save them, bringing the official and makeshift armies with vast amounts of money, booze and jewelry just for their safekeeping.
Thanks to Paul's brides, the hotel largely remains safe, becoming a safe haven to more than a thousand refugees of both ethnic groups, despite having been abandoned by the European troops and even the UN is spread very thin. But there are many harrowing moments, especially when Paul journeys out to get food and the roads are just filled with dead bodies.
While there are some tender moments, the film is filled with tension, knowing that each moment could be their last.
Despite the gloom and doom, the film ends with the difficult journey to the border, to a refugee camp where they will be safe to board buses to Tanzania. It is here where they reunite with Tatiana's two nieces (her brother and his wife were killed earlier) and bring several other orphans with them.
While it is impossible to understand the deep-seeded hatred between the two groups, this is nevertheless a genocide that cannot nor should not be forgotten and how dreadful it was that the rest of the world turned a blind eye, only worried about getting their citizens out of there, leaving the Rwandans to shoot each other until there are none left. There is no government, the military rules the streets. Certainly showing the relatively sheltered world of the fancy hotel is a cop-out but one that Hollywood needed because Hollywood needs its happy ending and we swallow it up, but the fear these people endured was so plainly etched on their faces in brilliant performances by all of the actors, none more so than Cheadle and Okonedo, both fully deserving of their Oscar nominations. Let this film stand as a part of history that we can learn from and never again repeat. Hopefully this film will teach us a lesson in humanity and Grade: A
Side Notes:
-Nick Notle and Joaquin Phoenix offer up their big names so this film can be a box office draw and they are quite good in their small roles. Phoenix is a news cameraman who journeys out to capture disturbing footage of machetes whipping people in the streets and Notle is the indefatigable UN soldier who eventually gets the people to safety.
-I guess they boil the pool water before drinking and cooking with it.
-I wonder where all the clothes came from as you don't really see anyone where the same outfit twice despite leaving with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
-I would not be pleased to learn that my husband had me transferred to be nearer to him for a brand-new Volkswagen as I am priceless.