Thu, 03/15/2007 - 11:49am

Trailer courtesy of IFC Films

An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered in a period of about 100 days in 1994, exciting the outrage of the international community­­––but little action.

Beyond the Gates is the latest cinematic effort to return to Rwanda and examine the genocide’s victims, perpetrators and survivors––and those who unwillingly straddled all three categories.

We see the story unfold through the eyes of Joe Connor, an idealistic young man who has come to Kigali to teach, and Father Christopher, a Catholic priest whose familiarity with human cruelty has tempered his faith in humanity, if not in God. When the genocide begins, the men open their school as a sanctuary, but the mounting violence and continuous swell of refugees test the limits of both idealism and faith. Ultimately both men must decide whether to leave when the United Nations troops withdraw, or to stay with those whose only option is to await death.

Hugh Dancy plays Joe with wide-eyed naivete, while John Hurt, as Father Christopher, gives one of the film’s most compelling performances. Without resorting to sanctimony, his horror at the surging insanity contrasts starkly with the indifference of many of the people around him.

This emotional disconnect is at the heart of many of the film’s most chilling scenes. Shopkeepers make small talk as the bodies of their neighbors bleed in the streets. Crowds whistle joyfully as families are hacked to death by machetes. Although much of the violence takes place beyond the camera’s lens, the film’s brutality is haunting.

Gates was shot in Rwanda, at the very school in which the events depicted unfolded, and many of the cast and crew are genocide survivors. Their experiences are woven into the fabric of the story, written in part by David Belton, a BBC correspondent who was stationed in Rwanda when the violence erupted.

Comparisons with 2004’s Hotel Rwanda are inevitable, as both films focus on real efforts to protect Rwandan Tutsis from Hutu militias. Although Joe and Father Christopher are fictional, the school is real. About 2,500 people took refuge there in the early days of the genocide, before the departure of the U.N. forced them to flee. Few survived.

Given the film’s Rwandan emphasis, it may seem surprising that the story’s chief protagonists are not Rwandan natives, but two white Britons––or is it? True, the real story of the Rwandan genocide is the fate of the hundreds of thousands who could not escape. But the majority of the viewing audience will recognize more of themselves in those who had to choose what they would sacrifice to stop the slaughter.

The failure of the U.N. and international governments to intervene has drawn censure in the following years, and Gates does touch on that. In Europe, the film was released with the title Shooting Dogs, a reference to the U.N.’s futility. Although the soldiers stationed at the school were forbidden to shoot the murderous Hutus, they would shoot at stray dogs that came to scavenge the bodies of those who fell before they entered the gates.

But the film’s primary focus is not U.N. culpability, Rwanda’s complicated political history or even the heroism of ordinary people. Ultimately, the central motif is the exploration of guilt––of those who survived, those who chose to leave and those who chose not to get involved. As the film’s tagline asks: What would you risk to make a difference?

For many of us, the answer may be troubling.

Beyond the Gates

Rated R

115 minutes

About the author
L. McGinnis

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