Shooting Dogs (2006)

This the first movie about Tutsi slaughter that i've watched; I usually watch documentaries about this terrible point in history. John Hurt is magnificent in this role. In fact, magnificent is too little an adjective to describe his portrayal of Christopher. This film isn't about the true gore of the genocide but more about the anxiety, the impending doom. With the Hutu looming on the outskirts of the school grounds you truly feel how trapped and defenseless the Tutsi were. I liked how they didn't exploit what happened there! Its an excellent movie, and made me cry. I wasn't too happy with the unspoken feelings at the end of the movie, however. I really thought the teacher should've begged Mari's forgiveness for leaving her behind but he never did. It was obvious she felt no animosity towards him though.

The genocide in Rwanda is news to few, if anyone these days. Films about it, such as "Hotel Rwanda" (an excellent film, I would add) are not really news either. However, last night, I had the great honor of watching a film on just this subject that slipped through the fingers of American cinema. "Beyond the Gates" is quite honestly, one of the best films I have ever seen.The film centers around two men from the UK, rather than on certain Rwandans, as we would expect. One is Joe (Hugh Dancy), a young man from the UK who has come to Rwanda because he feels he can do some good, maybe somehow make a difference. He is full of youthful energy, compassion, belief in his ability to do something to make Rwanda a better place, and most importantly, complete naiveté as to what is really going on around him. The other is Father Christopher (John Hurt), an old Catholic priest whose face, weathered and worn by the pain, injustice and brokenness he has witnessed in the world, belies the profound Catholic faith and hope in the cross of Christ that make him so powerful a character. Both men live and teach at the Ecole Technique Officielle, a secondary school for Rwandans, which is protected by an entourage of Belgian UN peacekeeping soldiers.As Dancy points out in a special features interview, the film is different in that it doesn't just thrust you into the horror of the genocide. Rather, it begins, much as Dancy's own character does, from complete naivety, evolving slowly into total realization of the atrocities being committed quite literally just "Beyond the Gates" of the ETO. While there is a long and bloody history of tribal warring between the Hutus and Tutsis, the film opens in a time of relative peace. Our first glimpse of the conflict comes in a scene where Joe is outside the gates, and comes across several Hutu men taking a census of the all of the Tutsis in the area. Shortly thereafter, the news comes through that the Rwandan President has been killed, and a Hutu uprising ensues. That night, the gates of the ETO are pressed hard by some 2500 Tutsis seeking refuge in the gated school grounds, and protection from the more than adequately armed UN stationed there.Over the course of the rest of the film, the genocide begins to unfold, in all its ugly hatred. We first begin to see it as Joe makes a number of trips outside the gates. The first is to pick up a father and his daughter, Marie (a girl who has grown up to fast, faced with the hell around her, yet who is still trying to make sense of it all, particularly from a Christian worldview), one of his students. On his way to their house, his fears mount as he is stopped at a roadblock by Hutu men with machetes, steeped in crimson, and they are only compounded when he finds the house empty. However, this time, his fears are abated when he returns to the ETO to find them safely there, having taken a back road. Another trip finds Joe at another roadblock, stopped by a Hutu man whose clothes are saturated red, blood still dripping from his machete, a broad smile across his face. This man had been with them at the ETO, a friend. With each passing trip, the death toll rises, the reality of the genocide slices deeper into the minds of Joe and viewer alike.I'll not go into more details of the events so as to not give away too much of the plot, but the point is, an ugly beast has reared its head...slowly, terribly, mercilessly and with great power. Christopher, though well accustomed to this ethnic strife through years of service in Rwanda, witnesses all new levels of human depravity, leaving him to utter in shock, "I've not seen this before".This is a profoundly moving and powerful film. It is, despite a few Hollywood hiccups of cheesy portrayals of Christianity, in fact a genuinely deep and faithful film. Christ is truly present here. There is a scene where Joe tries haphazardly to explain the idea of the Real Presence in the Eucharist to a young and confused, though very curious Rwandan boy...unfortunately, the scene is actually one of the cheesy moments...but it nevertheless ushers into the viewers conscience this idea of the presence of Christ, even as these people walk and live and die in hell on earth. The most powerful scene in the film comes near the end, and while I refuse to spoil it for you, know that it makes a profound statement about just that fact...the reality of the Real Presence of Christ, in even the darkest and most horrid of places."Beyond the Gates" is sweepingly thought provoking. From grappling with one of the timeless human questions, 'How can a loving God let such terrible things happen to His people?', to challenging the unwillingness of the UN to act, instead hiding behind debates over phraseology ("Acts of Genocide" vs "Genocides," etc.) even as gross human rights atrocities are committed literally right before their eyes, to even the apathy and ignorance of whites, Americans and Europeans to the situation, one cannot help but just sit as the credits roll...convicted, shamed, appalled, truly touched...in a way only an exceptionally good and very rare film can manage. I read critiques that it was too focused on the whites, rather than the Rwandan people...but I think that they missed the whole point that the director was shooting for. This film is meant to shock us and call us to action. There are similar conflicts going on all over Africa even as I write. Who will we be this time? Father Christopher...or God forbid (and quite literally so), will we echo the impotence of the UN? (from my blog at http://worthyourattention.blogspot.com/)

Can't believe this is the same director who made one of my favorites of all time, "Doc Hollywood"! What a range. But, here again, wonderful creation of sense of place. If you think "Hotel Rwanda" did it all, think again. In many ways this film is more horrifying with its focus on a single technical college where many Tutsis took refuge despite the impotence of UN soldiers based there. I also admired the inclusion of details that showed the Rwandans not simply as passive victims, but organizing themselves within the compound to promote their own welfare and resisting where possible.The film ably depicted the "thuggery" of the Hutu militias. Scholars of ethnic conflict have noted how thugs use the cover of ethnicity to exploit unsettled situations. The solution? Prompt "policing", a strong show of force, as could have been provided by the UN.

In April, 1994, the airplane of the Hutu President of Rwanda crashes and the Hutu militias slaughter the Tutsi population. In the Ecole Technique Officielle, the Catholic priest Christopher (John Hurt) and the idealistic English teacher Joe Connor (Hugh Dancy) lodge two thousand and five hundred Rwandans survivors in the school under the protection of the UN Belgian force and under siege of the Hutu militia. When the Tutsi refugees are abandoned by the UN, they are murdered by the extremist militia.After the magnificent 1994 "Hotel Rwanda", the world has the chance to see another testimony of the genocide in Rwanda, where eight hundred thousand (800,000) people was killed between April and July of 1994 under the total absence of protection or intervention of the United Nation. This powerful and touching true story was filmed in the real locations with the support of the survivors of the massacre. John Hurt is fantastic in the role of a suffered Catholic priest that dedicated his life to the people of this poor country, and Hugh Dancy is also amazing with an excellent interpretation. There are magnificent lines, but I personally was moved when Joe asks Christopher how much pain can a human being take, when he sees the mother being killed by machete strikes with her baby son by one killer of the militia. The questions about God's role the children ask Father Christopher are also great. The feelings of Rachel about the differences between the situation in Bosnia and in Rwanda are very sincere and the sacrifice of Christopher is something very beautiful in this film. The last question to the UN representative "- How many acts of genocide does it take to make a genocide?" in the procedures, regulations, viewpoint of whatever from UN closes this sad but recommended movie with golden key. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Tiros em Ruanda" ("Shots in Rwanda")