Rwandan Comparison. The films Hotel Rwanda and Shake Hands with the Devil portray the stories of two remarkable men caught in the thicket of a horrendous genocide in Rwanda.

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The films Hotel Rwanda and Shake Hands with the Devil portray the stories of two remarkable men caught in the thicket of a horrendous genocide in Rwanda. In Hotel Rwanda, the man portrayed is Paul Rusesabagina—a moderate Hutu and a hotel manager at the Milles Collines. When the first killings against Tutsis start, Rusesabagina is suddenly drawn into a crusade to not only save his Tutsi wife and three children, but his neighbours and a thousand other refugees as well. Through guts, bribery, flattery, and negotiation, Rusesabagina keeps over a thousand people safe from genocide and witnesses betrayals, murders, and deaths along the way. In Shake Hands with the Devil, the man portrayed is no other than Canadian Brigadier General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR). Dallaire is thrust into Rwanda with the responsibility of safekeeping the peace agreement between the Hutu government and the rebel Tutsi army. However with barely any material assistance and troop reinforcements from the UN, Daillaire is forced to watch the peace that he’s supposed to keep get replaced with a mad genocide. Both stories are remarkable, but the perspectives are very different; Rusesabagina’s view and experience of the genocide, as a Hutu Rwandan, would be very different from those of General Dallaire, a Canadian UN peacekeeping commander. It was however watching Rusesabagina’s perspective that was more helpful in understanding the genocide. The fact that the plot of Hotel Rwanda was very focused on portraying one specific aspect of the genocide, the physical appearance of actors and their surroundings, and the acting all contributed to a better overview of the horrendous genocide in Hotel Rwanda.  

        Portraying a whole genocide, with hundreds of important figures and thousands of events is surely difficult to do in a two hour film. No matter how good the portrayal, there are bound to be various details and vital characters left out. In the end it becomes a matter of focus, deciding which aspects of genocide the film chooses to capture and focus on. It is in these respects that the two films, Hotel Rwanda, and Shake Hands with the Devil differ—in focus. Hotel Rwanda concentrates on one man—Paul Rusesabagina, and one setting—the Hotel de Milles Collines. Shake Hands with the Devil also concentrates on one particular character—General Romeo Dallaire, but it also tries to expand into portraying the whole genocide and in the end, it turns into a one-dimensional depiction of both General Dallaire and the overall genocide. The approach of Hotel Rwanda was to concentrate heavily on the on-goings at the Milles Collines and the adventures of Paul Rusesabagina while leaving the other parts of the genocide up to the viewer to research separately or imagine. The film does not touch upon what the rebel Tutsi army was doing, what the United Nation was planning, how the United State ambassador was evacuated, or the specific happenings in the streets—even though those events are related to the genocide. The viewer sees figures like Romeo Dallaire, an important character in understanding the genocide, given only a minor role in Hotel Rwanda. All of this is to fully accommodate the depiction of Paul Rusesabagina, his family, and his adventure. In Shake Hands with the Devil on the other hand, many more aspects of the genocide are touched upon. All those aspects of the genocide that were largely ignored and left out in Hotel Rwanda are featured in Shake Hands with the Devil—like the actions of Paul Kagame and the happenings in the streets. However the film does not delve deeply into the mentioned points at all and sometimes does not even depict how those points relate to Dallaire’s experience. Those points end up becoming superfluous additions to the film that take away from the core focus, General Dallaire. The approach of Hotel Rwanda was much more attractive in that it offered the viewer a complete understanding of what happened in one setting, a setting that was in the thicket of the Rwandan genocide. It offered small snippets of what was happening outside of the Milles Collines and largely left it up to the viewer to research more or imagine what happened. Shake Hands with the Devil touches too many aspects and too many different characters that in the end, those additions and extra portrayals took away from the core depiction of Dallaire.

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        The physical appearance of the actors also was a point where the two films differed. Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda was portrayed by Don Cheadle whereas Romeo Dallaire was portrayed by Roy Dupuis in Shake Hands with the Devil. Because both characters are figures that actually exist in real life, the physical appearance of the actors is significantly important in how the viewer interprets and takes in these characters. The actors, even though they don’t have to look exactly like the figures they’re portraying, should give off a similar impression and aura. In these respects, Don Cheadle’s physical appearance not only ...

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