Shake Hands with the Devil (2007)

Premise: Focuses on Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire's (Roy Dupuis) time with the UN peacekeepers during the Rwandan genocide.

You want to know the truth? I'm not sure I can write about this movie. I can't find the words to express what Dallaire lived through for those 100 days. I wouldn't have made it through the first day, and he stayed there long after the UN refused to back him up in any way, long after they ordered him to leave. Many of his team deserted. Others were killed or struck down with illness. But he stayed and bore witness to everything the rest of the world was so quick to turn their backs on. And at the end, passed out on that bench or quietly remarking to a therapist, remarking, not even complaining, not even then, that he's failed? Dallaire, how could you have possibly failed? The world failed you. We failed you.

It is a testament to Dallaire's work since he returned and to the quality of the filmmaking here that the movie feels much closer to a documentary than a biopic. It also never turns into hagiography, which would have been the easy way out. Instead, we get fantastic work from the extraordinary Dupuis, who hollows Dallaire out in front of our eyes, never once going for anything showy even when Michael Donovan's script hands him big, meaty chunks. Dupuis always shows Dallaire holding back until the very last, and it is in that reservation that we begin the feel the weight of what he went through.

Expertly filmed on location in Rwanda where possible, director Roger Spottiswoode, cinematographer Miroslaw Baszak, and composer David Hirschfelder work in concert the provide both the most breathtaking and the most painfully intimate view of the country possible. Hirschfelder carries this through not by the overused string section but by largely depending on percussion. His score signals the low rumble of thunder in the distance long before the others recognize the storm that is upon them.

In the end, it would be an understatement to call this movie heartbreaking. It goes far beyond that. It's shattering. A+

Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, seen Dallaire speak, or watched the 2004 documentary, so I can't speak as to how this movie stacks up.