Shooting dogs

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Shooting dogs
Original title Shooting dogs
Country of production Great Britain
Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2005
length 115 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Michael Caton-Jones
script David Wolstencroft  (Screenplay)
Richard Alwyn
David Belton (Story)
production Jens Meurer
David Belton
Pippa Cross
music Dario Marianelli
camera Ivan Strasburg
cut Christian Lonk
occupation

Shooting Dogs ( "shoot dogs" to German about; on TV as murder of witnesses known) is a British-German feature film in 2005. He describes the first days of the genocide in Kigali , Rwanda , beginning with the April 7, 1994 , and with it the failure of the United Nations Support Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) - as well as the inglorious role of the UN Security Council .

action

The location of the film is a secondary school of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Kigali, which served as a base for Belgian soldiers of the United Nations as part of the UNAMIR mission. The film depicts the genocide of the Tutsi and the moderate Hutu by the Hutu population and Hutu militias, the Interahamwe , in sometimes drastic images . He does not hide the involvement of parts of the Rwandan government in planning this genocide. The inaction of the blue helmet soldiers is presented in great detail; it culminated in the withdrawal of soldiers, leaving around 2,500 Rwandan citizens who believed they were safe in the school to join the Hutu militia.

The main character, young Joe Connor, is employed as a teacher at the secondary school (Ecole Technique Officielle). In the process he met Marie, an excellent student and gifted long-distance runner, to whom he was drawn. If the film begins with the portrayal of an ideal world in which the affiliation of the students to the group of Tutsi or Hutu does not matter, the tide turns shortly afterwards. Joe finds himself again in a city filled with murderous people who brutally kill other people with machetes. Even François, a formerly friendly and open-minded unskilled worker at school and of Hutu origin, is drawn into the maelstrom of blood. Christopher, the school's Catholic priest and mentor to Joe, goes on a risky drive into town to get medicine for a sick child. He sees corpses covered in blood lying on the roadsides, in a monastery and right next to the pharmacy. This initially shook him in his Christian faith.

Shortly after the killings began, the school was overflowing with refugees. Marie is also among those looking for help. Joe assures her that everything will be fine. Hundreds of violent militias and Hutu have gathered at a safe distance in front of the school gates, kept in check by the UN soldiers. Their constant battle chants can be heard at school. The fear of the refugees becomes overwhelming and an attempt by some Tutsi to break out of the school is discovered by the militias. The Tutsi are killed by the militias in front of the UN soldiers and the refugees who remained in the camp.

Shortly afterwards, stray dogs tamper with the bodies of the murdered outside of school. When these threaten to become a hygiene problem, Captain Charles Delon decides to shoot the stray dogs. “Why are you shooting at the dogs, did the dogs attack you?” Christopher asks cynically the commanding officer Charles Delon (this is how the film got its title); He had previously stated that the mandate of the United Nations, to which his mission was subject, would only have allowed action against the militias outside of the school if the soldiers had been attacked.

Shortly afterwards, when French soldiers arrive with two trucks to evacuate the Europeans and Americans gathered there, only Joe and Christopher remain with the refugees together with the Belgian soldiers. Joe has to break his promise to Marie as the soldiers refuse to evacuate her in his place. Full of shame, he jumps onto the last truck of the Belgians who are now also moving away and is thus brought out of the danger zone. As soon as the last UN soldiers have withdrawn, the militias storm the school grounds and the killing begins. Christopher, on the other hand, shows courage and immediately beforehand loads the small school truck with a few Tutsi children, whom he hides under a tarpaulin. He manages to get through the militias outside the camp with the children. Shortly afterwards, however, he is stopped at a road block. It is night and when he briefly distracts the militias, the children, including Marie, can flee into the night. Christopher is murdered in the process. You can see Marie walking and running until it gets light again.

Joe and Marie meet again years later in England, where he now works as a teacher. This final scene accumulates the presence of the unprocessed and unforgotten terrible time in Rwanda, the lost youthfulness and lightheartedness of the burgeoning relationship between Joe and Marie as well as the courage and kindness of the survivors to carry on.

Reviews

  • epd Film : “In his film about the genocide of the Tutsi, Michael Caton-Jones thoroughly dismantles the Western self-image as the ruler of African destinies. His film is dramaturgically conventional, but unforgiving in its message. " 
  • film-dienst : “The moving film denounces the sins of omission of the United Nations in this civil war. Actually convincing, he concentrates on the psychological elaboration of the characters of the white protagonists, whereby the genocide becomes the backdrop for western conflicts of conscience. " 

background

What happens in and around the school is based on historical facts. Some survivors were involved in the creation of the film, who at the time were left defenseless by the soldiers in the Don Bosco school to the Hutu militias. This is made clear in the moving credits.

In the United States , the film was released under the title Beyond the Gates .

The start of the film in German cinemas in the Timebandits (Barnsteiner) rental company was on May 17, 2007.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ epd Film 5/2007 p. 40
  2. ↑ Shooting Dogs. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Tromsø Internasjonale Film Festival: Den norske fredsfilmprisen , accessed on April 5, 2011 (Norwegian)