KeepersFilmRef

Filmref.com 04-27-05
Keepers of Memory is a visceral, thoughtful, and deeply personal account of the human tragedy

A Tutsi herdsman and genocide survivor sits atop a pastoral outpost on the side of a hill in Bisesero, reflects on the loss of his
family and friends during the 100 day massacre, wistfully looks out into the horizon, and comments, "This place used to be
beautiful. Now the only beauty is the skeletons on the mountains". In a subsequent train of thought, he criticizes the continued
re-appearance (and opportunism) of international journalists in the area since the end of the genocide to conduct interviews with
survivors, only to go away and effect little change in their situation since 1994: "Can't you see we're dying?" It is a sentiment of
profound desolation, resignation, unreconciled grief, and impotence that would echo through the testimonials of several survivors
at each of six major sites of the 1994 Rwandan genocide who have, in their own individual ways, become keepers of the dead by
memorializing the massacre sites and serving as first-hand witnesses to articulate the depth of tragedy. A middle-aged woman
(and sole survivor of her family) who was shot by the Interahamwe (Hutu militia) in her own home recounts how she lay for days
on the floor gravely wounded amidst the bodies of her family, unable to move and afraid to call out for fear that the gunmen
would again return (as they had randomly done in the villages for several days to ensure that there were no survivors) and that, in
her immobility and dire thirst, had resorted to drinking from a pool of blood that had collected near her in a (perceived) moment
of weakness. Ten years later, she continues to regret her actions and feels forever destined to be haunted by her lost loved ones
every time she takes a drink of water, eternally bound in the memory of their dying blood bond. Another woman who bears the
physical scars from massive head wounds suffered during the massacre in her village expresses her strong objection to cover her
with a head scarf as often suggested by well-intentioned people around her, arguing that her disfigurement serves as a constant,
cautionary reminder to everyone on humankind's innate capacity for evil. At another site, a humble, religious man respectfully
tends to a mass grave site and offers another explanation to the tragedy: "How can Christians kill other Christians? Surely they
were possessed by Satan." At another site, a genial and reserved elderly woman on her way to church passes by a disused church
that had been the site of another massacre and is being used to house the remains of genocide victims that still continue to be
unearthed, and decides to pick some wild flowers to be placed among the skeletons, her countenance becoming increasingly
impassioned and visibly distraught as she recounts her personal experience amidst the overwhelming quantity of skeletons neatly
arranged before her, before apologizing to the off-screen interviewer (filmmaker Eric Kabera) for losing her composure. Keepers of
Memory is a visceral, thoughtful, and deeply personal account of the human tragedy that continues to haunt its often forgotten,
marginalized, and globally abandoned survivors. Contrasting the inarticulable, yet intimately heart-rending grief of the victims with
the carefully wordsmithed, olive branch speeches from representatives of the international community eager to put its collective
ignominious accountability behind (for callous and inhumanely reckless bureaucratic policies that exacerbated the tragedy) by
acknowledging its failure to intervene, the film serves as a provocative and powerfully moving indictment of factionalism, moral
complicity through abstention and inertia, and human indifference.

Posted by acquarello at April 27, 2005 06:35 PM