Historical dramas are often great places to find complete stories. The authors are usually drawn to the subject matter because of some great meaning that can be drawn from events that happened long ago. Hotel Rwanda (2004) is a beautiful and moving example of just this.

Spoilers Ahead…

There was a very good reason why Hotel Rwanda was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 2004 - it told a compelling story in a meaningful and complete way. Often, when this happens, there is a strong storyform lying underneath the surface. The following article chronicles the journey I took as I analyzed this powerful story through the eyes of Dramatica.

Overall Story

The first most obvious piece that I recognized was the Overall Story Throughline of Situation. The year is 1994 and Rwanda is descending into a state of madness. Note the use of the present tense here. It hasn’t descended into peril, nor will it descend in a few months time. In this story we’re at the breaking point of civil war. Of utmost concern to all is the Present situation (my choice for Overall Story Concern).

The plot points are most certainly driven by Actions - with the most explosive being the murder of the Hutu president by Tutsi rebels. The lowpoint continues the action trend with the U.N. abandoning Paul and the refugees at the hotel. The third act event would be the horrifying scene of the Hutus attacking the truck carrying Paul’s family to safety. And the final concluding event would have to be the Tutsi rebels beating back the Hutu hoarde.

Main Character

From here I ventured my attention towards fellow Cal Arts grad Don Cheadle and his portrayal of house manager Paul Rusesabagina. From the beginning we see that this is a man who knows how to get things done - yet does little physically. He knows who to talk to and what to say to get them to do what he wants. It is this quality of character that in fact makes him vital to the story. My first idea of his throughline veered me towards the Psychology Domain. Paul exists in the world of manipulations.

This made Paul a Be-er. A be-er is someone who would rather adapt themselves to their environment rather than try to force their environment into some different shape. Wearing the tie and suit of the Western world has become second nature for Paul. He changes himself to be more pleasing to those who can help him.

This felt good too when compared to the Overall Story. With this sort of relationship, an Overall Story of Situation and a Main Character of Psychology, the Growth of the Main Character tends towards Start. More specifically, Paul will be either waiting for something to start or he will have a hole in his heart that needs to be filled. That felt right. As dangerous as the situation is, Paul seems to be waiting for something to start - whether it be a rescue by the Belgian officials, the U.N., or even the Americans - there is a sense that he is holding out for something to start.

Naturally then, I began to think of his Resolve. He felt like a Steadfast character to me at first. The film portrayed this strong individual who stood up and refused to back down or give up even up until the very end. And that matched up well with him holding out for something to start.

But I could not for the life of me figure out who his Impact Character would be. If Paul is Steadfast, then there would have to be some great Change in another character and I could not find that anywhere. Frustrated, I gave up on my analysis and decided to let it sit in my mind for a day or two.

I woke up the next morning and knew the answer. Of course Paul is a Change Main Character. They set it up in the beginning - Paul’s neighbors are accosted by Hutu soldiers and his wife wants him to act. Paul declines, stating that it is only family that matters - nothing else. Let the neighbors take care of themselves. Look at this picture to the left - it is his lack of acting that is shown to be problematic.

Like Dicken’s Scrooge, Paul is not actively going out and causing harm, he’s allowing harm to happen and is thus shown to have a hole in his heart.

But then he fills that hole with something.

Paul learns to deeply care about the people living in his hotel. From orphaned children to the elderly - these are people who cannot act to save themselves. They need someone like Paul.

Paul is trapped in a great dilemma when his family is granted an exit Visa out of the madness. Can he really abandon these people? Isn’t family all that matters?

Paul puts his family on the truck, then slams the door shut behind them. His wife shrieks as she realizes what is going on. The two grasp hands as the truck pulls out, but Paul knows he has to stay - these people need him - there is more than his family. His point of view has changed.

The problem elements jumped out at me. Paul was plagued with Inaction - his lack of action was hurting his chances of survival - of figuring out some way out of all this. His solution was Protection.

Weaving the Main Character into the Overall Story

This fit in nicely with the Objective Story as well. If you have a Main Character who ultimately changes then the Objective Story will share the same problem element. The crisis in Rwanda unfolds because of a lack of action - a lack of action on the part of the Belgians, the Americans, and the world as a whole.

Hotel Rwanda does a beautiful job of weaving the Main Character’s Problem into the Overall Story’s Problem.

Tying the MC with the OS

When tying the Main Character’s personal issues with the Overall Story throughline, it’s best to show some sort of causal relationship between the Main Character’s resolution/non-resolution of his or her personal problem, and the success or failure of the OS goal.

Paul’s Protection of the people at the hotel buys enough time for the Tutsi Rebels to launch their attack. Paul changes and the Overall Story ends in Success. Success here is not measured in terms of one army winning over the other. Instead it is more accurate to say that the Present Situation has been successfully brought back into balance.

Impact Character

At first I had difficulty in nailing down exactly who stood in Paul’s way. I didn’t feel it was his wife - there wasn’t enough screen time with her. My mind then wandered towards his friend, General Bizimungu (Fana Mokena), Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte) and to a greater extent, his friend in the warehouse, George Rutuganda (Hakeem Kae-Kazim).

George was a very strong individual who had a considerable influence on Paul’s growth. Towards the end, there is a particularly powerful scene of the two of them in the warehouse. Paul laughs and mentions to George that certainly he didn’t think he would be able to kill all the Tutsi’s? George answers - “Why not?” as if he feels he and his Hutu friends have all the time in the world. Paul’s reaction to this is clear - he knows he has to do something.

But after a day or so I realized that this is really an Objective Story moment. His friend at the warehouse is a pawn in illustrating the Overall Story - the civil war in Rwanda. He exists to show the driving force of antagnoism in that story - that of the Hutu. No, the Impact Character had to lie somewhere else.

Relationship Throughline vs. The Overall Throughline

Then it dawned on me - his wife was Tutsi, but Paul was a Hutu. The objective conflict was mirrored by the emotional throughline of the relationship between he and his wife! Of course, it was so obvious.

Hutu vs. Tutsi is shown both objectively and subjectively. You get both the cold-hearted logical viewpoint and the heartfelt emotional viewpoint. But what is great about the difference is that while the objective viewpoint is shown to be a destructive one, the subjective view is shown to be a positive source of conflict. Hutu and Tutsi come together to form something more than themselves.

Taking us back to that moment when Paul fails to act in favor of his neighbors, it is his wife who tells him he has to do something. If a Main Character is avoiding something, the Impact Character will be the one that stands in his way - making sure that they can’t avoid their issues. They continue this conflict later in bed when Paul makes his statement about how family is all that matters.

Dramatically it is wonderful to see how this conflict in a personal relationship allows the conflict in the objective relationships to succeed. Without their marriage, Paul would not have been able to bide enough time for the Tutsi rebels to act.

Wrap-Up

From there it was a simple matter of filling in the blanks. An Optionlock exists in the Objective Story: there are only so many people Paul can turn to for help before he must turn to himself. At first it seems the U.N. will take care of things. Then, when the U.N. pulls out Paul calls on the Belgians who own the hotel to help him. When they sadly report they can do nothing, Paul turns to Bizimungu. Again, Paul’s pleas are left unanswered. The dwindling number of options increases the tension in the story and brings about it’s ultimate conclusion.

The Concerns took awhile for me to fully appreciate. The Objective Story Concern of Present was an obvious choice - the people in this crisis were not overly concerned with how things were going to be, or how things were in the past. They did, however, measure how things were changing to evaluate their present situation (which is why it fits nicely as the Objective Story Benchmark - more on this later).

The Main Character Concern of Conceiving fit in nicely as Paul was consistently trying to come up with an idea to save all these people. This was great except for the fact that it was completely wrong. I was doing what most people do when looking at the Main Character throughline - they confuse that throughline with the Main Character’s role in the Objective Story.

Paul’s attempt to come up with some way to help these people represented his role as a Protagonist in the Overall Story. His throughline should be something that is uniquely him. In other words, if you picked up Paul and placed him in a completely different story, what kind of emotional baggage would he bring over with him?

It became apparent to me that Paul’s personal concern was that of other people conceiving of him as a man of import - a man to be respected and a man of style. He does everything he can - dresses the part, smiles when he’s supposed to, shores up favors when he can - in an effort to almost elevate his status in life. That scene when he falls to the ground and rips off his shirt and tie is a Main Character Throughline moment - he had done all that he thought was appropriate - but it was still not enough.

Tatiana’s Concern was even more difficult - how did she repesent a Concern of Gathering Information? This was one of the reasons why I found it so difficult to label her as the Impact Character…until it dawned on me one morning while brushing my teeth (a place where all good ideas come). It was the concern that the Hutu army would Learn that she was Tutsi. The potential of this dangerous activity being realized is what has the most direct impact on Paul. It is what eventually pushes him into changing - as he comes to realize that there are more Tutsis in the same position as his wife.

Allowing the Storyform to Fall Into Place

And one last point - that of Paul’s Problem Solving Style and the Benchmark in each throughline. Paul’s PSS was the last thing I tried to figure out. There were only 2 possible storyforms left and the answer to this question held the key to a successful analysis.

Sometimes I find it difficult to come up with examples of whether or not the Main Character solves things logically or holistically. I usually know the answer - I just don’t know why. Intuition, however, is not enough. I knew I had to have solid reasoning behind my choice.

A storyform works when all the pieces synthesize into one holographic image

Thats when I decided to use a trick I learned from Chris Huntley. When you don’t know the answer to an appreciation - move on and try to answer as much as you can. You might have an idea of what the answer is, but move on anways and remember it for later. Often, when you get to the end you’ll find there is another appreciation that still has no answer. Try and take a guess at the one, keeping in mind the answer you had for the original appreciation. If in selecting the second appreciation, the first one falls into place with your original answer, then great - you’ve solved it. If not, you might have to rethink your original idea, or change the second one.

So in this story I was left with Paul’s Problem Solving Style and the Benchmarks. I had an idea (just a notion) that Paul was a Logical problem solver. At the end, when all looks lost, Paul comes up with the idea that if he gives Bizimungu all the jewelry left over at the diplomat, then Bizimungu will protect him. That’s a logical way of solving a problem.

In looking at the Benchmarks for the Objective Storyline I had the choice between The Past and How Things are Going. The Objective Story Benchmark repesents how the objective characters will measure how closer or farther they are to their final goal (which in this story, remember, was bringing equity back to their Present situation).

While there is time spent on how awful things were in the past (how the Tutsis treated the Hutus), Paul, Colonel Oliver, and all the people stranded at the hotel measured how well their present situation was by looking at which direction things were headed. When it looked like the U.N. would take care of them and things would get better, they felt like they had brought stability back to their present situation. When the Hutu rebels had made progress over the walls of the hotel and were ransacking it, their present situation looked grim and hopeless.

Conclusion

I think this post wins the prize for longest! In the future I’ll probably shorten it down a bit and just hit on the key aspects of a storyform. This time, however, I thought it might be helpful for others to see the thought process someone would go through in analyzing a story with Dramatica. You don’t always get it right the first time and there is a lot of back and forth as you try to bring all the pieces together.

The important thing to take away is that it is not enough to simply give one example for one appreciation. You can do that for any element in a story. Paul’s Concern could’ve been that of Obtaining safety for his family. But then how the other throughlines line up simply would not have made sense. A storyform works when all the pieces synthesize into one holographic image.

Hotel Rwanda was a beautiful and moving film - a work of story that had such an impact on me that I felt compelled to analyze it for days. While not all audiences will take it to the extent that I have in the paragraphs above, I do believe that a full story such as this sits with an audience. They’ll keep coming back to it days for days at a time, bringing up key moments, because they can’t stop thinking about it. Why? Because a compete argument has been synthesized into their brains in such a way that they can’t argue with it. All perspectives now exist simultaneously and they are faced with a conclusion they cannot argue with. The story, it would seem, has become a permanent part of their cognitive life.

Something, I’m sure, all stories aspire to.

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