Before I begin today's post I would like to take a moment to thank whoever's in charge of such things for inventing Netflix. It has changed our lives and we're not even subscribers! We just know people who are, and they are generous and share their movies with us, so even though we live all the way over here in Mali, we get to see the latest movies on DVD.

For instance, last night we saw Hotel Rwanda. That was probably the most difficult, wrenching, horrifying movie I've ever watched. I also believe it's also one of the most important and that's why I urge you to see it.

I'm going to reveal some plot things in the next paragraphs, so stop reading now if you don't want to know. You need to understand, though, that in this particular case, knowing how things ended might actually make the movie a little easier to watch.

It is based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who kept the Hotel Milles Collines open during the genocide of 1994, taking in a thousand Tutsi refugees. That he kept them safe for so long is nothing short of a miracle. There were massacres just outside the hotel gates, but Paul maintained his dignity: he wore a coat and tie every day, ran the hotel as smoothly as he always did, did his best to make sure that everyone had enough to eat, and kept the beer and scotch flowing. He also called in the favors of his contacts in the Hutu militia, with whom he'd been building business relationships for years.

I first heard of him when I started reading We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, a book so awful and heartbreaking that I haven't yet been able to finish it. I'd read enough, though, to know that Paul and his family survive and live now in Belgium. It was a small comfort while I was watching the film to know that they would not be killed -- there were so many close calls.

Although it's not gory or even violent by today's standards, the movie clearly depicts the unbelievable brutality of the genocide, through the aftermath (a traumatized boy covered in someone else's blood) and recounted stories, like the distraught Red Cross worker who tells Paul how she was forced to watch the militiamen murder a houseful of Tutsi orphans. Almost all of the killings happen offscreen.

The absolute hardest thing to watch is the negligence of the rest of the world. Nick Nolte leads a pathetically small handful of UN peacekeepers, who are no match for the huge machete-wielding mobs. Until the end Paul unquestioningly believes that when the world sees what's happening, they will step in to save the Rwandans. Of course they do not. Nearly one million Rwandans died. One million. How could the world let that happen?