Sometimes in April

Idris Elba, Carole Karemera. Two brothers bear witness to the atrocities of the Rwandan Genocide in this dark historical drama depicting the attitudes and circumstances leading up to brutal violence that eventually claimed as many as 1 million lives in a mere 100 days. 2005/color/140 min/NR.

A clear-eyed look at the Rwandan genocide is offered in ISometimes in April/I, a frank take on the 1994 slaughter that claimed upwards of 800,000 lives. Some overlap with IHotel Rwanda/I is inevitable, and this HBO feature does have similarities, but without the strong suspenseful storyline of IHotel/I. Its protagonist (the strong Idris Elba, from IThe Wire/I) pieces together the past tragedy from the perspective of a decade-later war-crimes tribunal, where his brother is on trial. It's hard to know which is less bearable--the depiction of atrocities, such as mass murder at a girls school, or the second-guessing of the international community, which largely stood by while the horror was unfolding. (Like IHotel Rwanda/I, this film zeroes in on the U.S. government's distinction that "acts of genocide" occurred in Rwanda rather than "genocide," a Joseph Heller-like absurdity.) The plain style of director Raoul Peck, shooting on location in Rwanda, works for the subject; his film ILumumba/I was also a direct, blunt account of a tragedy in Africa. The approach doesn't work as well in the U.S. scenes, which feature Debra Winger as a concerned official; these just look clumsy. But the subject itself remains worthy of close attention. I--Robert Horton/I