Reliving Rwanda

>> General Roméo Dallaire on the
compelling feature version of his memoir
Shake Hands With the Devil

by MATTHEW HAYS

Upon learning that a dramatic film version of Shake Hands With the Devil, General Roméo Dallaire’s Governor General’s Award-winning, bestselling memoir, was to be brought to the big screen, a series of worst-case scenarios come to mind. Would the film seem to arrive too late, given that Hotel Rwanda already received kudos—and a couple of Oscar nods—two years ago? Would this version of the horrific (not to mention entirely avoidable) Rwandan genocide of the ’90s, helmed by former James Bond director Roger Spottiswoode, simply fall into the predictable Hollywood traps?

The good news is, Spottiswoode’s Devil is very well done. It’s both haunting and horrifying—just as it should be—as it shows us this astonishing chapter in world history, through the eyes of Dallaire himself, who has since been appointed to the Senate. “I am not interested in a Hollywood version of the story,” Dallaire says, sitting down to discuss the project. “I’m interested in an accurate telling, one with respect for the facts and what really happened.”

And the facts are all here: as the Rwandan government stumbled in the mid-’90s, Dallaire, then in charge of a small but sturdy UN peacekeeping force, warned the UN brass that, unless there was some form of intervention, all hell was about to break loose and that hundreds of thousands were going to die. Dallaire smelled the stench of vengeance, and boy was he right. Shake Hands With the Devil goes out of its way to point fingers, trashing the UN, as well as the American and French governments for doing too little, too late.

Many Canadians would ultimately learn of this incredible story when, years after returning, Dallaire would be found, drunk and passed out on a park bench in Ottawa. The stress of what he’d seen and what he hadn’t managed to stop left him with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and in need of therapy. Shake Hands correctly shows us this too, and much of the story is told through flashback from the psychiatrist’s office.

Not a pretty picture

And given what he saw, it’s little wonder the man went over the deep end. The film depicts, in graphic detail, the corpses that were found, women and children desperate to get out who were left to be slaughtered, and the unthinking, unfeeling bureaucrats who were ultimately complicit with the mass murderers themselves. It ain’t a pretty picture, and it shouldn’t be.

Michael Donovan, the Oscar-winning producer of Bowling for Columbine, is a producer on Shake Hands With the Devil. He concedes that, this being a Canadian film, that meant the crew was forced to work with a somewhat lower budget in the $10-million range. But, he insists, that also allows for a greater freedom: “If you’re in a much higher budget range, you are going to have to answer to studios that may ask you to make compromises. That’s not what we wanted to do.”

Another announcement that proved initially cringe-worthy was the central casting call: Roy Dupuis as Dallaire? Again, there’s good news—Dupuis, fresh off the ice from his turn as hockey legend Maurice Richard in The Rocket, is superb as Dallaire, capturing the emotional depth of a man tortured by the insanity that’s unfolding around him.

Dallaire says he was both surprised and flattered at the announcement that Dupuis, the iconic Quebec thespian, would be portraying him in Shake Hands With the Devil. “When they mentioned him, I had an immediate positive reaction, because of his eyes. These are eyes that speak. You sense, not just his professionalism as an actor, but his inquisitive nature and intelligence. I know Roy has been very involved with saving rivers, with the environment, something that shows there’s a depth there.”

Dallaire says he had no special advice for Dupuis on playing him, though he did “discuss my incredible respect for the people of sub-Saharan Africa. In our materialistic world, it is hard for us to understand the extent of that.”

Dallaire’s story has received a lot of attention, due to his book, the subsequent documentary, and now this. Does he ever tire of talking about it? “Not for a moment. I live with what happened in Rwanda every day. It is with me always.

If this film can make a few more people think about what happened and understand the need to avoid it from happening again, then that’s a good thing.”

Shake Hands with the Devil
opens this Friday, Sept. 28

>> Movie Listings