Rwanda 1994. For thirty years the majority Hutu government has persecuted the minority Tutsi people. Under pressure from the West, the Hutu President has reluctantly agreed a deal to share power with the Tutsis. The UN has deployed a small force around Kigall, the capital, to monitor the fragile peace. However when the President dies in a plane crash, a surge of violence begins with Hutus seemingly trying to wipe out the Tutsis. A Roman Catholic preacher and a young teacher at a school take in Tutsis while the UN stand unable to provide a defence on orders from the Security Council.
Coming a year after Hotel Rwanda, Shooting Dogs suffered commercially because it had a smaller budget, had been overshadowed and wasn't really given the marketing push that the previous film had been. Although they are both equally as good and also as equally flawed it is easy to see why Hotel Rwanda dominated and continues to dominate it. The story is different but the approach is similar as a narrative and focus on a few characters allows the audience to see the horrors of the genocide. It is hard to critique the film in some ways because the material hurts so much and it will emotionally impact all viewers. Of course this is not the same as saying the story is well written because it isn't that strong and does necessitate putting Europeans up front which does jar occasionally as you remember who's story this is. Of course this wouldn't have been the case if the film had really pushed the boat out in attack of the UN and the West which the abandoning of those in the Ecole Technique most certainly allows.
However it does do this as well as I would have liked throughout and right down to the missed opportunity of the ending. Personally I could have done without the closure scene and would happily (bad choice of words) have closed on Joe leaving the school and the people behind with particular the way he leaves Marie behind. At this the symbolism would have been clear and the (mainly white and western) audience would have been left with nowhere to go, nothing to grab onto and rightly so. However, like Hotel Rwanda, it has some elements of a positive in the ending. OK a minor one but I didn't think it should have not least with other things in the world such as Darfur and Human Rights Watch's warning over returning violence in Rwanda, the former in particular being a reason for not having any sense of optimism at the end of this.
The cast are good in how they hold back from being the whole show and not lapsing into ham or sentimentality. Dancy holds back reasonably well from making it about his tears and does well to be horrified rather than upset. Hurt is OK but his character is a bit obtrusive and perhaps not as beneficial to the film as his name is. The support cast is convincing and the end credits show the genocide survivors who were involved behind the scenes.
Overall then this is an impacting film thanks to the subject matter but doesn't do all it should do. By not ending on a note of condemnation and pointlessness it is more palatable for audiences perhaps but avoids being the unavoidable and unanswerable moral challenge that it should have been.
Coming a year after Hotel Rwanda, Shooting Dogs suffered commercially because it had a smaller budget, had been overshadowed and wasn't really given the marketing push that the previous film had been. Although they are both equally as good and also as equally flawed it is easy to see why Hotel Rwanda dominated and continues to dominate it. The story is different but the approach is similar as a narrative and focus on a few characters allows the audience to see the horrors of the genocide. It is hard to critique the film in some ways because the material hurts so much and it will emotionally impact all viewers. Of course this is not the same as saying the story is well written because it isn't that strong and does necessitate putting Europeans up front which does jar occasionally as you remember who's story this is. Of course this wouldn't have been the case if the film had really pushed the boat out in attack of the UN and the West which the abandoning of those in the Ecole Technique most certainly allows.
However it does do this as well as I would have liked throughout and right down to the missed opportunity of the ending. Personally I could have done without the closure scene and would happily (bad choice of words) have closed on Joe leaving the school and the people behind with particular the way he leaves Marie behind. At this the symbolism would have been clear and the (mainly white and western) audience would have been left with nowhere to go, nothing to grab onto and rightly so. However, like Hotel Rwanda, it has some elements of a positive in the ending. OK a minor one but I didn't think it should have not least with other things in the world such as Darfur and Human Rights Watch's warning over returning violence in Rwanda, the former in particular being a reason for not having any sense of optimism at the end of this.
The cast are good in how they hold back from being the whole show and not lapsing into ham or sentimentality. Dancy holds back reasonably well from making it about his tears and does well to be horrified rather than upset. Hurt is OK but his character is a bit obtrusive and perhaps not as beneficial to the film as his name is. The support cast is convincing and the end credits show the genocide survivors who were involved behind the scenes.
Overall then this is an impacting film thanks to the subject matter but doesn't do all it should do. By not ending on a note of condemnation and pointlessness it is more palatable for audiences perhaps but avoids being the unavoidable and unanswerable moral challenge that it should have been.