The Japan Times, Japan
Feb 2 2007

Tales of tribal terror

By KAORI SHOJI

When Hitler got his collaborators together and proposed the genocide
of Jews, one of the things he said to justify the act was that before
long the world will forget the whole thing. He is famed for having
cited the example of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1917, in which
around a million people were estimated to have been killed) and said
that after all, no one remembered such a thing had happened, so how
different could it be this time around?

It seems that the same logic applied to the instigators of the
Rwandan genocide. Indeed, one remark by a soldier in "Shooting Dogs,"
just before he takes a machete to a victim’s head, says as much: "No
one will remember you existed."

The point of films like "Shooting Dogs" and the earlier "Hotel
Rwanda" is less about how well they’re made than the fact that
they’re there: that they get on the international film distribution
circuit, or that such films continue to be made, again and again. So
what if these movies aren’t hardcore documentaries? If entertainment
value is what it takes to get audiences to see them, then I cast my
vote to entertainment.

This especially goes for "Shooting Dogs," directed by entertainment
artisan Michael Caton-Jones, who has made works as diverse as "Basic
Instinct 2" and "Rob Roy." Caton-Jones takes a craftsman’s approach
to the story, and doesn’t let himself cave under the enormous weight
of this fact: In 1994, 800,000 Rwandans were murdered in the space of
100 days.

In many ways, "Shooting Dogs" displays a surreal insensitivity and a
typical Hollywood handling of real-life filth — the interior shots
are defined by a pristine orderliness, everyone looks as if they had
showered that morning and the Europeans depicted here are annoyingly
well-groomed. Still, it’s impossible not to come away with nerves in
tatters. Caton-Jones keeps an emotional distance. There was probably
no other way to go about it.

Based on true-life locations and the life of a Bosnian priest who had
been one of two white clergymen to remain in Rwanda after every other
Westerner had evacuated, "Shooting Dogs" opens with the news that the
president has been killed in a plane crash. There are rumors of a
coup, which quickly escalates to a mass wave of ethnic cleansing,
underscored by a feud that had continued between Rwandan Hutus and
Tutsis for centuries. Hutu extremists seize the upper hand by
installing road blocks, closing public facilities and taking to the
streets with machetes and lists containing the addresses and names of
Tutsis. Some 2,500 Tutsis take refuge in a local technical school run
by the idealistic Father Christopher (John Hurt) and the
well-intended young British teacher Joe Connor (Hugh Dancy). Both
strive to save their neighbors, their students and families, but
they’re ultimately helpless; the most chilling scene is when Father
Christopher finally leaves the school (he’s the last white man to go,
and the last vestige of hope for these people) in a truck. Even
before the dust from the wheels have cleared, Hutu extremists (who
had all been waiting at the gates with machetes and cleavers) are
given the command to "let the work begin!"

"Shooting Dogs" was partly written and produced by BBC news reporter
David Belton. In 1994, he had been in Rwanda to report on the
massacre and was helped by the Bosnian priest who inspired the story.
Eventually Belton got out of Rwanda when the atrocities threatened to
extend to the whites. He learned later that the priest was murdered.
What surfaces throughout the story is Belton’s sense of guilt at
having abandoned the country and its people and his deep frustration
at having been powerless to "make a difference," an oft-repeated
phrase in the dialogue.

Connor, however, is not Belton’s alter ego. Of all the characters
here, he seems to be the least substantial and is perhaps meant to be
so; an amalgam of all the Westerners who, with the best intentions,
fled Rwanda, not least of all the U.N. peacekeeping forces. In the
story, a Belgian unit based at the school is given orders to shoot
the dogs eating the corpses from genocide ("it’s a health risk!") but
they do nothing to stop the Hutu militia from producing corpses by
the score. Once seen, "Shooting Dogs" isn’t likely to be forgotten,
and that’s exactly what it aims for.

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