Tragic Hero

Paul Rusesabagina is a legend in his own time, a living Oskar Schindler, after the release of the movie Hotel Rwanda. It is a victory of film-as-commentary that the media pays attention to Rusesabagina as much as to Don Cheadle. The latter is a great actor; the former is a great man. He recently came back from a visit to Darfur, and is speaking out on behalf of current and future genocide victims, warning that the world has not indeed learnt the lesson of 'never again'.

The movie, fortunately, does not fall under the 'never again' banner. I saw it last week, and it is a truly noble treatment of a noble subject. Though it is not nearly as bloody as The Passion, the tension and pain of the film left me feeling jarred in the same way, though to a lesser degree. I had intended to write a review of the film here, but never got around to it.