lazarusisdead

So, I saw 'The Sea Inside' yesterday. Very good movie.

And today I went to see 'Hotel Rwanda'. What an extraordinarily powerful movie. It's such a strange concept to know that genocide is not something to read about with horror in history books. It always seemed so distant in the past, in spite of the living survivors from the Nazi camps. Yet, it happened again in Cambodia in the 70s, and I was in high school while those people were being murdered by Pol Pot and his henchmen. And then in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It keeps happening.

I work with a woman who came with her family from Croatia with nothing. The economy and the culture of her country were much more stable than the Eastern Bloc countries while she grew up and got married and started her family. But it all fell apart, and look how many people died and how many lives were shattered. And look at Chile in 1973, one of the more stable South American countries of the 70s, in spite of the high inflation: massacres and torture.

What would I do if tanks came rolling down Corydon Avenue here in Winnipeg? How would I react if my neighbors were dragged out of their houses and arrested by a bunch of camoflage-dressed thugs? How would they react to my arrest? Fear? Anger? Disgust? Horror? Impotence?

I went to see 'House of Flying Daggers' immediately after 'Hotel Rwanda' and I have to say that it is not a good idea to see a martial arts love story right after you've seen as disturbing a film as 'Hotel Rwanda'. It's a little hard to concentrate. Plus the film wasn't quite lined up properly, so the tops of heads kept getting chopped off on occasion.