Shake Hands With The Devil
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If you've seen Hotel Rwanda, you might remember a United Nations commander played by Nick Nolte, who pops in and out of the Mille Collines with increasingly bad news about the international community, and any potential help they might offer. Shake Hands With The Devil is about the real-life inspiration for the Nolte character, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire (now Lieutenant-General and Senator). Based on Dallaire's award-winning, best-selling memoir, it tells the story of his efforts, as commander of the UN forces in Rwanda, to intervene in the genocide - or rather, his efforts to convince his political masters that they should allow him to do so. It's a beautifully made film, with haunting music, stunning cinematography (all the crucial genocide scenes were filmed on their actual locations in Rwanda), and fantastic acting from Canadian icon Roy Dupuis and others. I just posted a mini-review of it at Not Coming to a Theater Near You. Here's an excerpt: "I knew going in that I would be moved by Shake Hands With The Devil. I'm not sure how widely distributed the film is right now, but if you have access to it, I would absolutely recommend it. I would unhesitatingly say it is one of the best movies I have ever seen - in terms of sheer emotional impact, certainly - and an important document of the shortcomings of the international community. Of course, the cynic in me says this movie isn't going to get the critical attention it deserves - awards and the like - because Hollywood has already paid token homage to the victims of the genocide by giving Don Cheadle an Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda. Still, if it qualifies as a foreign-language film (the movie takes place roughly half in French and half in English) it might make some noise during awards season. Not that awards are what Dallaire and the movie's producers are after, but a nomination or two would vastly increase the numbers of people who see it - and that can only be a good thing. View the trailer here. The official site, which includes information about the Dallaire Foundation and some background info about Rwanda, is here. |
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Hey Julie, Thanks for that link! I agree, Dallaire is a fascinating character. I don't normally go in for the hero thing much, but he comes pretty close - and he's so unbelievably damaged by the experience, admiring him doesn't really seem like hero worship in the fatuous sense. Because I wouldn't ever want to be in his shoes. Does that make sense?
I have never heard of "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" - what's it about?
Hi, Eva-
You're welcome; and thanks for the link about the interview with Dallaire's wife. I've been thinking a lot lately about how the wives never get interviewed (probably on that train of thought b/c I'm in the process of trying to secure an interview with a high profile activist in PR whose wife is hardly mentioned and never interviewed and it got me thinking... what's HER story?
You made total sense.
"Beyond the Gates of Splendor" was a really interesting documentary about 5 couples who were Christian missionaries working together in Ecuador in the 1950s. There were a couple of aspects of the documentary that I appreciated and that made me think of our recent back-and-forth here on Matador regarding tourist v. traveler (in a tangential way, perhaps). First, the narrative (written and actual) broke the conventions of the dualistic narratives that often characterize missionary related work (i.e: "bad missionary!" vs. "missionaries are good"). Of course (as is the case with everything), the issue was much more complex, and I think the film captures some of that complexity. Second, because the film broke that narrative expectation, it opened up into other possibilities...namely, that somewhere between "regular" travel, disaster tourism, and missionary work is this thing called... real life. If you watch it, I think you'll know what I mean (though reading this right now, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense!) :)
Also, here's a brief recent interview with Dallaire's wife, on helping him survive PTSD.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071126.wlhampson26/BNStory/lifeMain/home
Eva-
Thanks so much for posting this... and so timely for me, too, as I just watched Frontline's "On Our Watch," in which Dallaire was interviewed. I always thought Dallaire was represented poorly by Nick Nolte, and the brief appearance he makes in "On Our Watch" captivated me. This new film is definitely on the top of my soon-to-see list. Here's the link to "On Our Watch" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darfur/
By the way, I just watched a documentary, "Beyond the Gates of Splendor"... have you ever seen it? If not, let me know and I'll give you a brief synopsis...think you'd find it interesting for some of your other writing.
Peace,
Julie