Horrors such as the Rwandan genocide, in which 800 000 people were killed in 100 days, are an appalling indictment of man’s inhumanity and must be told, said British actor John Hurt.
”So many times has this happened in human history that you can’t say this will never happen again. But at least you can be part of trying to say it must never happen again. I have my doubts about humanity, but we try,” he told Agence France-Presse.
He was talking ahead of the release of his latest film, Shooting Dogs, which opens in France on Wednesday, and in which he plays a priest caught up in the chaos which descended on the country after Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was blown up in mid-air on April 6 1994.
Based on a true story, the film was produced by former BBC cameraman David Belton, who was working in the country when the bloodshed was unleashed.
In just 100 days, with impotent United Nations peacekeeping forces mandated only to help repatriate foreigners, 800 000 people, mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were massacred, many hacked and bludgeoned to death by machetes and spiked clubs.
Shooting Dogs goes on release following the award-winning Hotel Rwanda, the acclaimed true story of a hotel manager who sheltered Tutsi refugees from Hutu gangs, starring Don Cheadle, and which drew box-office crowds.
Hurt, whose previous films include David Lynch’s Elephant Man and Alan Parker’s Midnight Express, said he was not surprised the Rwandan genocide was attracting film-makers a decade after the killings.
”It is such an extraordinary story, and it’s a story that the Rwandans desperately want to be told,” he said, adding that all Rwandans were survivors of the bloodshed.
”There’s nobody in the whole of Rwanda that isn’t touched, and most of them pretty heavily by the genocide.”
In the film, shot in eight weeks in Rwanda, Hurt stars with Hugh Dancy, who plays a young English teacher. Together the two men have to confront the limits of their courage as they choose whether to leave or stay.
”It’s a subject you shouldn’t turn your back on. I think originally I just felt this is something I feel, rather than intellectually, that I emotionally feel one should do,” Hurt said when asked about taking on the role.
Finding an appropriate response to such events as the Rwandan genocide was not always easy, Hurt acknowledged, saying he was often surprised at man’s ability to assimilate things and remain cynical.
”I think there is a guilt. Guilt is quite easily assuaged. We are quite clever at that. We go and see Hotel Rwanda and we don’t need to do anything more. We’ve done that, I don’t feel guilty any more. It’s like confession. Go and confess and it’s all right now.” — Sapa-AFP