'Gates' revisits moral quandary in Rwanda

This harrowing look at the 1994 genocide goes beyond documentary to delve into an ethical dilemma.

from the March 16, 2007 edition

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The 1994 Rwandan genocide is once again the subject of a movie. Even more so than its forerunner "Hotel Rwanda," "Beyond the Gates" is unsparing in its depiction of that terrible time. The hacked-up bodies that we see in graphic close-up by the roadside are only part of the reason why.

The film is about how 2,500 Tutsi refugees were sequestered in the Kigali secondary school Ecole Technique Officielle and subsequently slaughtered when the resident United Nations peacekeeping forces were ordered to leave and whites were evacuated by the French.

The two main protagonists in "Beyond the Gates" are Father Christopher (John Hurt), a Catholic priest who presides over a church located at the school, and Joe Connor (Hugh Dancy), a starry-eyed idealist who is spending a year teaching there. Christopher has been in Africa for 30 years and has an intuitive grasp of its politics. When the first rumblings of trouble reach the school, he understands much more than Joe what is in store.

Christopher's outward show of weariness belies his core of activism. His faith is so resolute that he can perform baptisms when the world is a charnel house outside his church doors. Hurt, whose father was a priest and whose brother is a Catholic monk, is extraordinary. Without resorting to either high dudgeon or low sentimentality, he makes goodness palpable. Although he appears to be avidly righteous, Joe is far more riven than Christopher by events. His decision about whether or not to stay behind with the Tutsi refugees is the movie's core dilemma. It lifts the film beyond its docu-drama trappings and into the roiling realm of moral inquiry.

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