Shake Hands with the Devil

Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival)

Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Starring: Roy Dupuis, Deborah Kara Unger, Odile Katesi Gakire, Owen Lebakeng Sejake, James Gallanders, Michel Mongeau, John Sibi-Okumu, Robert Lalonde

In-a-not-so-nutshell:
The Rwandan "genocide" is not a new topic for the cinema, but Spottiswoode's cinematic effort grows over its two-hour running time into a story that surrenders to its surroundings and prompts one truly important human question: In a world such as theirs, or ours, would you want to continue living?

In Spottiswoode's look at a country that transformed from 10-million somewhat united Rwandans to a Hutu vs Tutsi war-zone in the 1990s, the focus is firmly on Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire and his Canadian UN troops stationed at the United Nations Association Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), peace keepers sent to "keep peace" but, frustratingly, not to make it. And when, as the film itself asks, there is no peace left to keep, then what?

Cinema's celebrities, and the world's attention, have lately been centered around Darfur, and Darfur Now (narrated by Hotel Rwanda's Don Cheadle) is also playing here at Toronto. Darfur is a more than worthy cause, but Shake Hands with the Devil drives home an important reminder that there is never just one worthy cause, and it's all too easy for world attention to bend toward countries considered more noteworthy than those that don't produce rich resources.

The Americans, French and Belgians each get singled out for their lack of effective foreign diplomacy in this feature, but the biggest accusations of impotent administration focus firmly on the United Nations itself. While a good point is raised in the film that "peace-keeping is not a soldier's job but only a soldier can do it," the quandary is whether a man can be a soldier who can keep peace without the weapons and equipment to enforce it. And the answer is definitely a resounding "No" for this time in this region.

Early in the film, the music more aptly portrays the urgency than do the actors' voices, and Dupuis's performance seems stuck in a TV cop's body rather than the frame of a film hero. That said, the crowd scenes are recreated with an honesty that resonates with the audience, and the Rwandan countryside is itself a force of rare beauty. And in the background, the Hutus blame the Belgians, the Tutsis blame the French, the UN blames itself, and terror tactics prevail.

Control in the country is relegated to a pipe-dream following the cataclysmic crash of the President's plane at Kigali airport, a crash that also claimed the lives of Rwanda's Chief-of-Staff as well as the president of neighboring Burundi. And with this event, the film's force unfolds. Dupuis's character morphs from military calm to passionate extremes as he experiences the frustrations and limitations of his assignment. It is then that the movie opens up to emotion, and soaks the cinema-goer into one of those true stories that must astound anyone with a heart that's still beating. And when the bodies of Belgian UN servicemen are discovered dumped in a pile of death so disgusting that Dallaire is hard-pressed to even count the fallen, hopes of humanity disintegrate.

The systematic slaughtering that follows washes the streets with slain bodies, wives and mothers slipping in the blood of their husbands and sons. Spottiswoode's depiction of the events is both devastating and debilitative, and these irrepressible images are the defining characteristic of this film. And that the UN lies down its weapons in the face of conflict flies in the face of what we so desperately want to think separates the civilized from those engaged in civil war. The UN serves as messenger only, an expensive message-delivery service deployed to serve as go-betweens in other nations' games of war.

Spottiswoode serves the film's ability to step back from the mess and investigate the characters' mores and moves by deftly cutting between the story and a room that is not unlike a therapist's office in which, as in Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit, the players are trapped and their minds freed to comment on their predicament.

The title of the film stems from a meeting between Dallaire and Hutu militia, whose handshake support is sought for a ceasefire in which Tutsis can be transported to safer ground. And when they inevitably break that bond of trust, the Canadian leader is left with nothing to do but lament the situation, lobby the UN for support, and to continue to commit himself and his volunteers (which include Ghanaian and Bangladeshi troops) to the path that is most just.

Powerfully, Dupuis's character resorts to cutting himself for relief from the pain of inaction. Poignantly, he's left to question not only why ("pourquoi?") but literally to ask "pour quoi?" - "for what" is all this horror? For what? After 100 days and 1,000,000 dead Rwandans, Dupuis states that 'he sees their faces all the time.' Now, thanks to Spottiswoode's vision, so do I. -MPM

UPDATE
February 26, 2009 -- Regent Releasing, a leading independent U.S. film distributor, announced today that it has acquired U.S. distribution rights to the docudrama Shake Hands With The Devil, from EMMY®-nominated director Roger Spottiswoode and OSCAR®-winning producer Michael Donovan of Bowling for Columbine. Regent acquired the film from Halifax Film, a DHX Media company, and will distribute the film in the summer of 2009.