A Sunday in Kigali (2006) User Reviews

More personal view than Hotel Rwanda

[merlin9877 · 8/10 · 15 April 2006]

I've seen Hotel Rwanda and now this film about the genocide of the early 90's in that country. Both films are very poignant. This movie is definitely more intimate as we are following a journalist through his view of that country's drama and, especially, his love towards a young black woman. I think that this movie complements nicely Hotel Rwanda with as powerful performances and story with a more day to day view of the very harsh reality of those times.

Be aware that there are some disturbing scenes in this movie. In hoping that movies like this will help raise consciousness and help prevent other tragedies like that one.

This movie is worth seeing.

[Xiangjia · 7/10 · 13 August 2006]

I don't speak French. Yet, when I found myself in Montreal for one night with nothing to do, I asked around for a Canadian Film that I could check out. I ended up watching Un dimanche à Kigali. I was able to follow the film without needing to have known the language -- until the end. **Spoiler coming -- I was totally surprised at the ending. I couldn't understand why the leading man did what he did -- until I read some of the other film comments and found out about the "promise" made from earlier on in the movie. Overall, I liked that movie. We all have our different opinions about "life and death", BUT, considering ALL that the two protagonists have gone through and their strong bond of love and sense of survival, I wonder if they should/could have allowed that strength to carry them beyond the moment and face the new challenges (AIDS, disfiguring scars, etc).

A very dramatic story.

[zutterjp48 · 8/10 · 9 November 2019]

This film is the adaptation of the novel "Un dimanche à Kigali à la piscine" of the Canadian journalist and novelist Gilles Courtemanche. We are in spring 1994: the political situation becomes every more tense.Extremist Hutu leaders are speaking everyday about revenge against the Tutsi population. A Canadian journalist who is preparing a documentary about SIDA in Rwanda meets in the famous Hotel des Milles Collines, a young Tutsi waitress called Gentille and they fall in love.He doesn't manage to marry and to travel to Canada with her.He can't find her during the days of the genocide and has to flee to Ouganda for some weeks.And when he will come back he will find a totally destroyed country. It's a very dramatic story (I have lived in Rwanda for some years in the seventies) about a terrible civil war, where there was a tremendous hate hate and violence, but also some great cases of friendship and solidarity (I recommend the film "Kinyarwanda). PS. All the films about this tragedy such as Hotel Rwanda, Shooting dogs,Kinyarwanda,Sometimes in April are complementary !!

Long build up but well worth it

[nosceipsum · 9/10 · 20 April 2006]

I have been looking forward to seeing the film version of Gil Courtemanche's book 'Un Dimanche à la piscine de Kigali'; it was a disturbing yet beautiful film.

The film takes, it seems at first, its sweet time in shaping itself up; but it is merely a way to draw you into the story, making you a part of it.

Robert Favreau did an incredible and sensitive job in being suggestive instead of using candid images but there are moments in the film that remain very hard to witness. By the time you are at the end of the film and the lights turn back on, you find yourself a bit stoned by the amount of emotions you have experienced. You then wish the film had taken even longer in presenting its different characters, or perhaps you wish you had paid better attention.

You want to hate the film because it displays such a level of horror; the hellish reality of the Rwandan genocide is clear in this film. But 'Kigali' doesn't allow you to hate it as you see its love story take center stage and shining despite the darkness of the subject matter...

See this movie even if you have seen Hotel Rwanda...

[jcurmelife · 10/10 · 7 February 2007]

The movie just came out on DVD, I read other comments and agree and disagree with some.

This movie and especially on the BONUS part...the making of Un Dimanche a Kigali, JUST THIS PART IS WORTH IT, where the producers, directors and actors talk about the condition 10 years later after the genocide. To hear and see how professional the Rwandans were and helpful in producing and being extras of the movie was worth buying the DVD.

There are hidden and internally scars that will never heal however my hope is that this movie will present a lesson to how the UN forces from France, Belgium, Italy, Canada and the US were inactive in their missions to police and stop the massacres. My anger was raised when the Canadian general Dallaire who saw all this could do nothing because of the political stance of the countries mentioned and how he wanted to do something but his hands were tied.

Although the story was based on a fictionalized romantic story, and the rest of the characters and events were true, I congratulate ALL for this poignant VISUAL STORY TELLING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED THERE. I have not read the novel, heard it was an international bestseller and certainly raised the question what in HEAVEN is wrong with people/governments who had the military potential, the tools and certainly the possibility to stop this tragedy.

Unfortunately, other dissimulated wars are happening still in Africa such as in Darfur and no once cares...Will it take filmmakers with a conscience to raise awareness??? What are the news media doing in all this? Questions asked but that will be never answered.

If you are one that cares...see this BEAUTIFUL movie...some end scenes are graphic but like one Montreal newspaper critic said...it will show you the bad and good side of humanity.

FYI....according to the movie producers Rwandans are genteel, soft-spoken people....that is what is most surprising about this genocide.

Heartbreaking and Powerful Gem

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 22 September 2008]

In April 1994, the middle-aged Canadian journalist Bernard Valcourt (Luc Picard) is making a documentary in Kigali about AIDS. He secretly falls in love for the Tutsi waitress of his hotel Gentille (Fatou N'Diaye), who is younger than him, in a period of violent racial conflicts. When the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda begins, Bernard does not succeed in escaping with Gentille to Canada. When the genocide finishes in July 1994, Bernard returns to the chaotic Kigali seeking out Gentille in the middle of destruction and dead bodies.

The heartbreaking and powerful "Un Dimanche à Kigali" is certainly the best Canadian movie I have ever seen. The engaging story is a sort of complement of "Hotel Rwanda" and "Shooting Dogs", focused in the romance of a Canadian journalist and a Tutsi waitress, but disclosing also the genocide of the Tutsis in the landscape of a troubled Rwanda while the West simply ignored and turned back to the fate of millions of people. Luc Picard has a magnificent performance that would deserve a nomination to the Oscar, if this award was really concerned with great movies and performances; the gorgeous Fatou N'Diaye has also an awesome performance in the role of Gentille. The direction is realistic, supported by stunning cinematography and scenarios. It is worth seeing this gem recommended to lovers of great movies. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Tensão em Ruanda" ("Tension in Rwanda")

A fine and predictable movie

[rlvm98 · 5/10 · 16 April 2006]

This could be a great movie dealing with a great subject. However, the producers tried to convey to many (political) messages to the audience while wanting to put forward a Titanic-style love story between the two main characters. The main focus switched continuously between the love-guilt relationship between the Gentille and Bernard, and the events in Rwanda during that time. With many flashbacks in between, all possible twists were defused well before the audience imagination started to kick in given the circumstances.

On the other hand, the western authorities in this movies are depicted as binaries and stereotyped to the point of being completely caricatural, which removed a great deal of credibility to the plot. The movie condemns the inertia of the western powers in general, and Canada in particular, in face of the genocide. Canada is a poor choice for personifying the main actor that could change the course of history in the Rwandan tragedy. It was simply a matter of the geography, no colonial ties with Rwanda and no clear role in that country at that time. It almost likened to accuse, let say, Peru for its inertia toward the Holocaust during WW2. Belgium on the other hand would be a more credible choice.

I got out of the movie with the feeling of seeing a modern day adaptation of a Shakespeare's drama between two lovers with footages of the Rwandan massacre from CNN inserted in the background. The WW2 Holocaust or the Camdodian genocide could served as decorum to the story with the same effects.

This movie could pick up where 'Hotel Rwanda' left off, but it decided to be just a complement of the later.

May be disturbing and triggering for some viewers

[tigrlily61 · 25 April 2006]

There are two aspects of this film which I found very disturbing. The first is horrifying, but important to portray because of its truth. That was a scene near the end that depicts one of the protagonists being raped, beaten and mutilated. Rape and sexual mutilation are among the most common war crimes. So though the scene will be very hurtful for rape and abuse survivors, it is important for those who have never considered the impact of these crimes to know what happens to people.

What I found troubling about the film was the sympathetic depiction (yet again in modern cinema) of "mercy killing." In another scene, when the character of Bernard finds his beloved disfigured and ill with AIDS, he "fulfills a promise" she exacted before the war by suffocating her.

It seems the Brave New Solution to emotional pain and disability is death; whether it's "Million Dollar Baby," "The Sea Inside," or now "Un dimanche à Kigali." Yet people with disabilities, who are more prone to being abused and who live with disfiguring conditions, object to the idea that it's better to be dead than disabled.

My experience of the film was both personal and political. As a person who survived sexual violence, I found the rape and mutilation scene terrifying and brutal, but appropriate. But as a person with disabilities, one of which is disfiguring, I found the mercy killing scene chilling and horrific, and unnecessary.