Quelques jours en avril

If you really want to find out a bit more about the genocide in Rwanda of 1994, this is THE movie to go! It's a wonderful, yet uncompromisingly sad and bitter movie. Whereas "Hotel Rwanda" was more like Schindlers List in Africa, more focusing on a Hollywood-like hero & love story, "Sometimes in April" leads you right into the very depths of hell. The characters are well pointed out, the acting is always impressive and the film-making is very subtle and pleasantly calm. the only thing really which I could complain about to a certain degree was the sometimes a bit too prominently set musical soundtrack. Still - this movie is unforgettable; for one simply because of its honest attempt to tell the story of what happened in Rwanda, when the world literally turned its head - and on the other hand I feel the deepest respect for the team involved in making this for their seriousness and adequacy. A very daring and important movie!

"Sometimes in April" attempts to tell the story of the 1994 wholesale slaughter of about 800,000 mostly innocent people during the 100 day national ordeal when the top blew off the powder keg which Rwanda, Africa had become. This film of civil war and genocide focuses on one man, Augustin (Elba), a Rwandan soldier and his extended family as it jumps around in location and time using his story to connect the dots. Although this HBO docudrama makes a satisfactory dramatic watch, is asks more questions than it answers and leaves one wondering, among other things, how it is possible that so many helpless and innocent people could be savagely murdered by their own countrymen. The historical background and Rwandan zeitgeist are not sufficiently presented but the brutality of the horrific genocide perpetrated by the Hutus upon the Tutsis and Hutu moderates, stands out in bold relief. Snapshots of US State Department bureaucrat Prudence Bushnell's (Winger) frustration with her own government's slow reaction to the crisis and the seemingly inadequate UN war crimes tribunals only hint at the problems associated with intervention in civil strife and prosecution of war criminals. Overall, the film is a worthwhile entertaining and educational watch with language, violence, sex/rape thoughtfully maintained at a level which would probably yield about a PG-13 rating. (B)

I saw this last evening at a screening here in LA. I was extremely moved by the content and the way everything was shown. Having it filmed in Rwanda made a big difference. In 1994, I was 14 years old and I honestly did not hear anything about the genocide until 1999 when I was in college and studied it in my Ethnic and Minority Issues class. I was amazed to learn even more from this film. The acting was remarkable. Before the screening a historian talked about the genocide and then the director addressed the audience. His passion for this project was clear, and I think that having it on HBO gave him a lot of artistic freedom I highly recommend seeing this film just for educational value...you will come away impressed and contemplative.

I became interested in the Rwanda genocide after viewing PBS's broadcast "Ghosts of Rwanda" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/) and reading Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire's book "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda". Both (particularly Dallaire's work) effected me so deeply that I was pleased when first "Sometimes in April" and later "Hotel Rwanda" came to the screen, so that the Rwanda tragedy would achieve greater attention. But I am still waiting for a definitive screen presentation of the genocide, one that shows its full evil, one that allows no one responsible to escape, one that underlines heroism in a season in hell, and one that scars the viewer so greatly the the phrase "never again" has true meaning.

"Sometimes in April" is laudable in that the genocide is depicted in individual human terms. It allows us to know both victims and predators. But it fails in explaining how very human characters became murderers. And it glides over the complicity of the French, the failure of the UN to support its mission, and the failure of the West (not just the US) to intervene.

I recommend this movie as a starting point. I found it far more poignant than "Hotel Rwanda". But I am still waiting for movie justice to be done to this tragedy.

This was one of the most moving films I have ever seen. Didn't have the flash of Hotel Rwanda or Schindler's List, but possibly surpassed them in substance. This is not a film for the squeamish, but a film about genocide shouldn't be if it is to deliver its message with maximum effect. Even 11 years on, we in the West get only glimpses into the happenings of the Rwanda Genocide and even fewer in the Western World even attempt to understand the reasons. In just 100 days, over 1 million Tutsis and Moderate Hutus were killed while the world looked the other way. I think this film demonstrated this very well, while at the same time it showed that there were some (Debra Winger's character) in the West who tried everything to help but could do nothing. It doesn't blame the West for the genocide like an uber-liberal, Michael Mooresque America-bashing festival would, but doesn't forgive the West for letting it happen either (which is more than reasonable). "It was Rwandans killing Rwandans", was the line used by the US Army general in the film to give an excuse as to why nothing was done by the outside world. But I think the most important message in this film was that in the living hell that was Rwanda during the genocide, there were still incredible acts of courage and humanity (the Hutu farm wife who sheltered the Matron and the school girls). An aspect of the film that struck hardest with me was how quickly the spiral of madness and slaughter struck so quickly and so terribly. The interplay between the main characters also showed that many of the people who complied in this most evil of crimes were not monsters out of a horror novel, but regular people who through self-interest or ethnic bigotry became the tools of this remarkable insanity. To sum this up, I gave this movie a 10 out of 10. The reason why I did is because this is a movie that should be seen by all. To paraphrase the motto of the survivors of Hitler's Holocaust, "Never again", Sometimes in April reminds us all that we should keep to that promise.