The protagonists of the story are two brothers Honoré Butera, who works for the racially prejudiced Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, and Augustin Muganza, a captain in the Rwandan army. Augustin, married to a Tutsi lady, Jeanne, fathered three children, Anne-Marie, Yves-André, and Marcus. He becomes a spectator to the assassination of nearly 1,000,000 natives in a span of 100 days who were being separated due to political affairs and were losing some of their own relatives. The film portrays the manner and events which led to the eruption of barbaric violence. It brings out interweaved tales of the besieged common populace and their attempts to endure the hostilities, and the subsequent events with people trying to obtain justice and reestablishment. It presents a sense of well-researched actuality about the illustration of the Rwandan genocide. Although viewers are spared a portrayal of the notorious knife murders, it does not avoid depicting the perpetual carnage of innocents in their homes and on the streets at gunpoint, or even the cutting down of a roomful of petrified schoolgirls in the films most distressing sequence. In a worthy but gawkily implemented attempt to get the nation’s story heard, the film moves to and fro between 1994 and the present as war malefactors are tried at the Intl. Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania. Justly annoyed the script reflects on the treachery of Rwanda’s former colonists, the U.S. government, and the feeble UN security forces (Gervers, p. 167).
It’s a deeply touching story about Rwandans witnessing the deaths of countrymen. Despite the attempts of presenting some hope for the future at the end, you cannot help feeling disturbed.
Works Cited
Gervers, V; Movie report: 2007 (Melbourne: HBT Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 2000) p. 167.