Emotional Connections in Hotel Rwanda

The film focused primarily on the hardships and trails of the Tutsi against the evil Hutu. The main way in which they expounded on this was through the emotional connections made between the audience and Paul. I am not trying to underestimate the mass genocide that was committed by the Hutu against the Tutsi. The only Hutu that was ever seen in a good light was the main character, Paul, who was connected to the Tutsi because of his Tutsi wife. The movie touches briefly on the past conflict between the two races but does not expound upon how the Tutsi were in power before and committed shameful acts against the Hutu because of this power and arrogance.

The filmmakers did a superb job in connecting the audiences’ emotions to the characters and creating hatred toward the Hutu. They could have provoked this emotional connection with extreme graphic violence, yet they refrained from this tactic. Instead, they implied a lot of the violence that occurred during this mass genocide. They never showed someone being killed. In contrast, they showed the roads littered with dead bodies or random pillagers using their machetes on corpses from a distance. Above all, the filmmakers made the most connection to audience through one of the only good Hutu featured in the movie, Paul.

The conflict of the two races seemed to wage war through Paul's character. In the beginning of the movie, he was completely ignorant to the hostilities brewing in the country. Once the Hutu rebels threaten his family, the war becomes an important part in his life. The pivotal point in the movie that really changed Paul's attitude and developed his character was when he saw the road littered with thousands of bodies in early hours of one foggy morning. Ultimately, his character develops from a selfish regular worker to a self-sacrificing individual that does what ever he can to save the Tutsi that are hiding in the hotel.

All of the devices that the filmmakers used to emotionally connect with the audience worked to portray some of the horrors of the genocide that had happened in Rwanda. The reason to connect with the audience is to make more people aware of the horrors that man can commit to their own kin. Hopefully, as more become aware of such atrocities, they will be more likely to help those who are suffering and to deter others from repeating the same horrific actions in the future.