Social Problems - Hotel Rwanda-indenify a social problem within the movie - Essay Example

century, and eventually the tension was so great that a full-fledged civil war broke out in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of almost a million people. Foreign aid was sent in to calm the situation, but a lack of crucial support meant that both the Hutu and the Tutsi people were forced to hide as refugees wherever they could find shelter from the rampaging armies. Hotel Rwanda is a movie that tells the true story of one man who lived through the war and realized that he could only rely on himself to save his own life and the lives of many other refugees.

The movie takes place in the Rwandan capital of Kigali in 1994, just as the serious violence between the Hutus and Tutsis breaks out. The main character, Paul Rusesabagina, was the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali. Mille Collines means ‘thousand hills’ in French, the language of Rwanda’s Belgian colonizers, and the phrase is used as a direct reference to Rwanda itself – the land of a thousand hills. The movie is a very accurate depiction of the Rwandan conflict in 1994, and during the course of the film Paul Rusesabagina finds himself in an awkward position as a Hutu who doesn’t believe in politics or violence against the Tutsi.

He first claims responsibility solely over himself and his family, but soon realizes that he is the only person who can save the lives of hundreds of families and children of both Tutsi and Hutu tribes who are being persecuted by armies on either side. His hotel becomes a place of refuge for over 1200 people, and the only way to keep the ‘guests’ from being killed by the armies is to pretend that it is being run as usual for high-class, European paying guests. Paul does his best to keep the hotel running – he bribes military leaders with unlimited beer and scotch so that they will guard the gates of the establishment and keep the gun-wielding Hutu army and Tutsi rebels out of the building.

At the outbreak of the conflict, UN forces are sent in and