100 days is a sad, sad movie about the Rwandan Genocide. My favorite thing about this movie though is the way it deals with the genocide so subtly. Easily, 100 days could be a simple cry. Like paint by numbers, this could be one of those movies where the director shows his audience exactly where he wants them to feel the emotional pull. But not this movie. Nick Hughes (the director) instead chose to focus on specific character development. In fact, the overall toll of the genocide is never specifically mentioned. Still, the audience is bawling by the end.
The emotional pull of 100 days is entirely due to a cleverly crafted character/audience relationship. The two main characters, Baptiste (Eric Bridges Twahirwa) and Josette (Cleophas Kabisita), are young lovers intending to be married. From the beginning, the scenes with just these two are vibrant and happy. The first time we see them together they are playing in trees. The colors on the screen are bright and the camera picks up various shafts of light coming through the trees. The dialogue is simple but conveys a youthful sense of hope. Even Josette's dress, which she proudly proclaims is from, "Paris!" is colorful and full of life, just like the young people themselves. From this scene the audience has a sense of progression, that these two want life to be better for themselves and future generations. Josette refuses to sleep with Baptiste because she doesn't want to be pregnant and unhappily married, as she says, "like my other friends." They want to have children when they choose and wear clothing from far away. These dreams and others like them are so similar to this American audience that we can't help but be swept away with Josette and Baptiste.
There is one beautiful shot in this sequence that deserves special remark. When they are discussing their future, Josette and Baptiste are sitting on the forest floor on a small hill. The camera looks up at them, Josette in the foreground on the right and Baptiste far in the background on the top left. At this point this shot is jarring because it places the lovers physically distant from each other. Unfortunately this is a camera's way of foreshadowing their future.
At the end of the movie we see an almost identical shot. Josette is sitting on the right in the foreground, and Baptiste on the top left corner in the background. However, Josette's beautiful dress is now discolored, torn and dull. Baptiste too has dirt and blood on him, and looks to have aged ten years in those short 100 days. Even without viewing the movie, these two production stills get the point across vividly.
A movie about genocide could easily go overboard on the violence. Although it is important to recognize that horrific things did happen, the danger is that, somehow, showing too much of this in a film is more likely to desensitize the audience than make the needed point. This is much like Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, which endeavors to make a religious/humanistic point but is overwhelmingly remembered for its excessive violence. A movie about genocide could end up similarly. Instead, there are relatively few direct discussions of the genocide happening around the characters. One such scene is a simple yet horrific shot of body after body after body being dumped into a pit. Some of the bodies aren't even fully in the pit. The visual trick of seeing a dead body hanging only half over a ledge and some villain walking over the former person with no sense of decorum shows the genius of Hughes. Without use of dialogue he has effectively captured the evil of the genocide.
Another scene with very little dialogue but huge portent comes almost exactly in the middle of the film. Interestingly, the larger part of the violence only takes place in the second half of the movie. However, the inhumanity can be summed up in a single scene. The scene begins with three groups of men coming to a crossroads (how symbolic) with a gas station in the middle. The Tutsi children from the local boys school are called forth by name and put in the gas station. The gas station is filled with kerosene, but even after the order is given to burn it no one will carry the torch. Finally a single man takes charge of the fire, and only after this do the others join in. This scene seems to me significant for two reasons: 1) No one wanted to lead the violence, only follow it. They have no real reason to cause the disturbance, but follow almost gleefully when another leads. 2) The schoolchildren don't scream. Even when the kerosene seeps into their single-room prison, these 10 year old men don't scream. Instead, there is a beautiful pan shot of the boys protecting each other. How powerful.
Lastly and perhaps most poignant is a dreadful scene at the end of the film. At first the Tutsis were captive in a church, at which point they were abandoned by the UN and effectively left to their deaths. At this point however it is the Hutus who have taken refuge in the church and are now trapped. A small child asks why the Tutsis are different. A woman answers her that Tutsis have long fingers and lighter skin, all the while stroking the child's fingers and face. The visual effect is creepy, but the dialogue here is all important. In a single question and answer these two have summed up the problem. The child cannot understand how the oppressed are any different from she, and the only answer the "knowledgeable" adult has is that they are physically different, and not even remarkably so.
How indescribably awful that a million people were killed for having slightly longer fingers.
Overall, the most remarkable part of 100 Days is that it conveys the deep sense of horror without specifically dwelling on the genocide. This is the genius of the film. The audience walks away with a deeply ingrained sense of frustration, indignation, disgust and an incredible sadness without even seeing the full effect of the genocide on the Rwandan people. A remarkable film.
