Genre: Drama/War
Director: Bennett Miller
Writer: Dominic Wilkins
Cast: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Stephen Lang, Liev Schreiber, Barkhad Abdi, Laurence Fishburne, Don Cheadle, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Kaluuya, Thandie Newton
Plot: Quebec – 1995 - Famed psychologist Mary Gloom (Thandie Newton) is sitting in her chair, waiting for her next patient. He’s a soldier, a colonel. He’s different than the other military cases. This one doesn’t have PTSD. He just wants to talk. Who is she to say no, with all the money she’s gonna earn listening to a man talking. It’s her job after all… He comes in, presents himself, Colonel Romeo Dallaire (Liam Neeson). He sits down and asks her if she’s ready to hear him. She says yes. He wasn’t someone who was sent on the battlefield. He was sent by the UN on a mission to observe the tensions between Rwanda and Uganda, in 1993.
Rwandan and Ugandan border – June 1993 - Colonel Dallaire is standing in a building, with his second-in-command, Colonel Ben Matiwaza (Forest Whitaker). Their mission is to make sure that there’s no weapons or bombs crossing the border between Uganda and Rwanda. The Tutsi, a group of Ugandan people, are rebelling against the Rwandan government. Negotiations are in progress and tensions are high. They’re alerted by a soldier who claims someone is trying to get through with a weapon, but they can’t prove it. Dallaire goes outside with Matiwaza and meet the man. He’s trying to cross the border with a safe, nobody can crack it open and he refuses to open it. Matizawa throws the man in jail and keeps the safe.
Quebec - 1995 – Everything was going well at that point, nothing to signal. Gloom is a little bit bored, but she carries on. Dallaire doesn’t even look at her, he just tells his story without stopping.
Kigali, Rwanda – April 2nd 1994 – Colonel Dallaire meets with Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana (Laurence Fishburne) in Kigali. The president is planning a diplomatic trip to Burundi, not related to the current peace negotiations. Dallaire and Matizawa assure the president that no one has seen a weapon cross the border, or else they would’ve known about it. However, they don’t think it would be a great idea for him to travel, as he’s more vulnerable that way. Habyarimana doesn’t think he’s in danger and insists on going to Burundi. His innocence baffles Dallaire. In retrospective, Dallaire still doesn’t think it was a great idea for the president to leave the country. Romeo recommends that it would be safer for him to travel on a plane, rather than in a car, as it would be harder to reach him. They shake hands and leave.
Rwandan and Ugandan border – April 6th 1994 - Dallaire and Matizawa are listening to the radio, on a sunny day. They’re both bored and have nothing to do. The song who’s currently playing suddenly stops.
Kigali, Uganda – April 6th 1994 – President Habyarimana gets on his plane. He sits down and starts reading the paper. He greets the flight attendant. During this time, Papou Gueye (Barkhad Abdi), an ordinary man, is slowly walking in the streets of Kigali. He gets in a taxi and asks to go slightly out of town. The presidential plane is grounded for the time being, a mechanical problem. Gueye gets out of the taxi and enters an abandoned building. He gets inside and uncovers a huge machine, a guided missile launcher. He turns on the radio and waits, looking at the sky. The plane finally takes off, the president is still reading the papers. Papou looks in the sky and sees the plane. He presses on a button and fires a missile. He runs away. The presidential plane is shot down. Romeo Dallaire and Ben Matizawa can’t believe it.
Quebec – 1995 – Mary Gloom asks Dallaire if he regrets sending the president on a plane to Burundi. He says he has many regrets, but this isn’t one. There was no way of knowing that someone in Rwanda at this kind of artillery. He says the next days were total chaos.
Rwandan and Ugandan border – April 7th 1994 – A UN group on an observation mission, like Dallaire’s can’t shot or kill someone, unless their life is threatened. This is why there’s nothing they could do when several Hutus crossed the border with guns and equipment and killed the Tutsis regiments who were guarding it on Dallaire’s behalf. Romeo calls the man who coordinates the mission from Europe, Bernard Kouchner (Stephen Lang). Kouchner forbids Dallaire from doing anything, despite the Hutus killing everyone in entire villages, just to exterminate the Tutsis. Kouchner says that since nobody from the UN has been killed, they can’t do anything. Dallaire was about to hang up, when Ben arrives and tells him he just heard on the radio that every Rwandan government executives have been killed, therefore, no peace negotiations can happen between the two groups. He tells it to Kouchner, but he still forbids any form of intervention from the UN, until he hears further instructions. Dallaire hangs up and decides to move to Kigali with the group, feeling there’s no nothing else he can do here.
Kigali, Rwanda – April 8th 1994 – Dallaire and Ben’s group of UN soldiers decided to make camp in a stadium in Kigali, along with another group of UN soldier, led by Gerard Wellens (Live Schreiber), from Belgium. The Hutus are killing more and more people every day. Papou Gueye is instructing the Hutus to not shoot or hit the UN boys, unless they want to die. Dallaire receives a call from Kouchner, who informs him that the mission is now classified as an intervention mission, rather than an observatory mission, but they still can’t shoot at the Hutus, unless their life is in danger. It now means that they can shelter Tutsis and give them food, but their main objective is to bring the peace between to the groups. The three leaders decide to lead a grand scale mission : take every Tutsis in Kigali and shelter them in their stadium. Colonel Dallaire leaves with a few man and moves around Kigali. They enter various houses and find Tutsis, alive or slaughtered. At one point, Dallaire enters a house and the soldier with him starts crying. They enter the house and the soldier jumps in the man’s arms. The UN soldier, George Fapou (Daniel Kaluuya), who was adopted a couple of years ago, is reunited with his biological father and sister, Daniel (Don Cheadle) and Henrietta (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) Fapou. George was sure they were dead and he’s relieved to find they’re alive. They leave for the stadium with the Tutsis they found. Ben Matiwaza and Gerard Wellens come back and they have rescued about 12,000 Tutsis in total. During this time, several other Tutsis are slaughtered by Hutus.
Kigali, Rwanda – April 14th 1994 – Dallaire, Matiwaza and Wellens are happy about what they’ve done. The stadium is full of Tutsis who’re going to stay alive because of them. They planned other rescue missions for other days. Dallaire answers a call from Kouchner. He asks to talk to Wellens. He leaves the room and they hear him scream at Kouchner. He comes back inside. Belgium and France have decided to repatriate their soldiers. Wellens must go too. About half of the mission’s forces are forced to leave, along with their food and resources.
Kigali, Rwanda – April 21st 1994 – The rescue missions were cancelled. Dallaire struggles to feed the 12,000 Tutsis he rescued. He frequently talks with the Fapous. They always like to thank him, but Dallaire wants none of it. He just wants to talk to somebody about something else than war and strategy. He comes back to his office and receives a call from Bernard Kouchner. He decided that Dallaire did absolutely nothing to help the peace negotiations in Rwanda and cuts his workforce from 2,500 to 500. He has less than a week to do something. Kouchner says he shouldn’t waste his time rescuing the thousands he has, but he should help save the other thousands out there.
Kigali, Rwanda – April 22th 1994 – The soldiers are leaving with Ben Matiwaza. Dallaire negotiated with him to keep reserves of food he was supposed to take with him. They say goodbye to each other and Dallaire goes in his office. He sits there, thinking. During this time, we see Hutus killing Tutsis in remote villages. Dallaire comes out and brings his satellite phone with him. He goes to see the Fapou. Kouchner calls. He learned that Dallaire kept food. Dallaire doesn’t want to hear anything from Kouchner and gives the phone to Daniel Fapou, who tells Kouchner everything Dallaire did for them. Dallaire takes the phone back, the Koucher says it, he’s not the head of the mission anymore. He has to leave.
Quebec, 1995 – Mary Gloom asks him how he felt at that moment. He says he doesn’t remember, but he can’t help but think how right he was to stick with the people he had already saved. Kouchner will always tell afterwards that thousands people are dead become he didn’t do anything. He starts crying. He says there’s nothing he could have done. The Hutus didn’t listen to anyone, they just slaughtered and slaughtered. He saw atrocious, horrible things out there and there was nothing he could do. He didn’t have the men, or the resources to do anything. He’s just grateful to have saved the life of 12,000 Tutsis. He said what he did was like shaking hands with the Devil. He saved 12,000 people, but he knows deep down many people died because he didn’t do anything. Humanity failed in Rwanda.
Before the credits starts, we see this text :
The UN estimates about 800,000 Tutsis were killed by the Hutus. The genocide ended in July 1994, when the international media started to hear about the event and various governments decided to intervene, mainly France, who repatriated their soldiers earlier in the conflict.
Later, people started to realize what Colonel Romeo Dallaire did in Rwanda and he was pardoned. We see Dallaire receiving the Order of Canada for his services. He was named a Senator for the Liberal Party in 2005, a position he will keep until his retirement in June 2014, 20 years after the Rwandan genocide. He is now considered a war hero.
No comments:
Post a Comment