Final Media Task

Although “Hotel Rwanda” and “Shake Hands with the Devil” showed completely different aspects of the genocide in Rwanda, the two both managed to show what true evil is. In “Shake Hands with the Devil” we see the perspective of a UN soldier, doing everything in his power to stop the massacre of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. General Dellaire is their General and realizes he is over his head, but because of his neutral position Dellaire allows us to see the perspective of both sides of the war. On the other hand “Hotel Rwanda” is shown from the view of Paul Rossesabagina, a Hutu hotel manager. In my opinion, because of the fact that Paul is native to Rwanda the perspective is that of the people, and really shows how no one was safe and how hopeless they were. The comparison between the perspectives of the two stories is really what shows the bias and how the two stories contradict each other. Although both stories quite obviously give off a sense of evil and darkness, they are seen through different eyes and put the blood on different peoples hands. For example in “Hotel Rwanda” even though it was the native Hutus and Tutsis with the machetes, the movie almost gave off the impression that the people were angry with the UN. I found it amazing that this could happen considering these soldiers were here doing what they could to help the situation. Also in this movie, the Rwandan army was portrayed as just as evil as the rebel forces. “Shake Hand with the Devil” on the other hand was much different. This movie really pushed the fact that it was the Tutsis that started the war when in fact it was more mutual than anything. The UN was shown as very helpful in the genocide, but on the other hand it kind of felt like this movie wanted to make people feel like the United States wanted nothing to do with helping the problem.
Although I personally don’t doubt the quality of evidence of either of the two movies I question the purpose of “Hotel Rwanda” and found “Shake Hands with the Devil” a bit more convincing for a couple of reasons. First of all and most importantly, “Hotel Rwanda” is a Hollywood movie in my opinion, and was made more to make money than to raise awareness. Some parts of the story seemed extremely exaggerated like when it turned out that his co worker was actually a Hutu interhamwe, although it might have been true, I found moments like these to take away from what was really happening For this reason, I just think that the story might have been twisted or exaggerated in certain cases to make the story more dramatic or appealing to an audience. Secondly, “Shake Hands with the Devil” to me really gave off a more realistic feel, even if at times it did get a bit gruesome. Maybe it was because the movie was filmed in Rwanda or because it had those dark subtitles at the start explaining things I just found the movie more believable. Lastly this movie was filmed under the supervision of General Dellaire, and after seeing what he has gone through, I find it hard to believe he would let anything but the truth into his movie.
The differences and biases are obvious, but the dark and evil vibe that these two movies gave off was astounding. The aspect of evil that hit me the hardest and truly defined evil in my opinion was the murder of the innocent. Both movies showed at least one scene with piles and piles of dead bodies, women, men and children. The thought that these hopeless people were being killed for no particular reason really struck me. I remember the line from “Hotel Rwanda”, “Please don’t kill me! I Promise I won’t be Tutsi anymore” the fact that no matter what these children did or said, they were going to be killed was another thing that showed the true evil of this genocide. The last presence of evil that was shown in both movies was the wake of destruction that was left in Rwanda. I recall from the interview “Children of Rwanda’s Genocide” the one in three children were left without a home or parents not only showed darkness but that it was going to take a long time for this darkness to be lifted from grief-stricken Rwanda. Because if the genocide is over, the evil will not be forgotten.

Summative Essay Write

English 11 Summative Write

I Am Legend

Nolan Ramsden

January 17^th

Based in New York City, A genetic breakthrough in science seems to have discovered a cure for Cancer. As thousands of people acquire the cure, things turn for the worst. The cure turns out to be an infection, which transforms the hosts into crazy cannibalistic Zombies and is highly contagious. Robert Neville, the protagonist, is a scientist immune to this nasty infection. As the city is being evacuated, Robert chooses to stay behind with his dog Sam and run tests on the zombies in hopes of discovering a cure and stopping the infection. As time progresses Robert begins to be more and more outnumbered by the zombies who lurk in the shadows and realizes that his time to discover the cure is running low. Eventually, in a last ditch attempt, Robert discovers the cure and hands it to two young survivors on their way to a safe zone, losing his life in the progresses but potentially saving mankind.

         The film maker conveys evil and darkness by bringing many peoples fears to life in the setting. The fact that the zombies are only able to stay in the shadows or come out at night really brings the feeling of being scared of the dark to life. Also because of this, the majority of the actions scenes take place in the darkness, making for a very evil feel. Also he brings out feelings of evil through the characters, because in one specific scene when Sam is infected with the diseases Robert is forced to kill his only companion, showing how dark and evil the infection can be to take his only friend from him. This was also the scene that had the most impact on me for many reasons. First of all, Sam by attempting to save Robert which really impacted me because it shows that even if it was a valiant effort, good doesn’t always win, and in this case, evil was much more powerful. For me, the thought that evil is stronger than good scares me because we always have the feeling of safety knowing that good will prevail, but not in this case. I felt that in this movie it wasn’t exactly the characters that expressed darkness but the fear that they invoked and the pain and hopelessness they brought on Robert, for me that is true darkness.

         I connected this film in many ways towards almost every scary movie and their stereotypes that go with them. Like in almost every scary movie, the killer knows where his victims are but the victims don’t know the same. Much like these movies, Robert was always very unsure of the zombies because of the darkness which to me really expresses a dark feeling. Also like many scary movies, the victims are killed off slowly one by one until there is only one that remains. Although there were only two characters to begin with, Robert is left alone and overwhelmed by darkness, he reaches the brink of losing faith and giving up hope, showing that evil will prevail. Fortunately this is not the case in the movie and he is saved by other survivors.

Props to migy10