From the Rocket to Rwanda
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This week Roy Dupuis will be hanging out with
Roméo Dallaire at a military academy in Quebec.
The actor is about to portray the former UN peacekeeper. |
Roméo Dallaire seems strangely out of place at the Ritz Carlton, the legendary five-star hotel in downtown Montreal, where he's sitting down to discuss the dramatic film version of his bestselling, Governor-General's Award-winning memoir, Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.
But here he is: The straight-shooting retired general, who bucked authority and condemned the pathetic response of the international community to the Rwandan genocide of the early nineties, is talking about the film that he hopes will continue to carry the story to new audiences.
"I am not interested in a Hollywood version of this story," says Dallaire, who is now a senator. "I'm interested in an accurate telling, one with respect for the facts and what really happened."
And despite the incredibly dramatic aspects of this story, one that includes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and cries that were not heeded by the international community, Dallaire felt it best that the story remain homegrown.
The talent behind the $10-million feature, which will begin shooting in Rwanda in two weeks time and continue until mid-August, is some of the best Canada has to offer. Co-produced by Michael Donovan (Oscar-winner for Bowling for Columbine), Laszlo Barna (Da Vinci's Inquest) and Arnie Gelbart (The Blue Butterfly, Lilies), the film will be distributed by Montreal-based Seville Pictures and will be directed by Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies, And the Band Played On).
Topping it all off is the central casting call: Roy Dupuis, fresh from his critically lauded turn as late hockey legend Maurice Richard in The Rocket, will play the beleaguered Dallaire as he tried to avert a genocide more than a decade ago.
Donovan says he immediately saw the cinematic potential for a story as extreme as Dallaire's. "We acquired the film rights after reading the galleys, before the book had even been published," he recalls. "Hotel Rwanda has already come out, but there are over 850,000 stories that remain to be told. That was just one."
Donovan says the budget is a challenge, but also offers a degree of creative and artistic freedom for the team behind it. "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. We wanted to make sure this story was told properly."
Dallaire says he was both surprised and flattered at the announcement that Dupuis, one of Quebec's most popular actors, 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. "I will 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."
Dupuis concedes he hadn't read Dallaire's book when he was offered the role. "I knew of his story, but hadn't read it. It is a remarkably well-written book, and obviously an astonishing story. Roméo has had to live with the hell of knowing and seeing what he saw back then. In a sense, it killed part of him, but it made another part of him alive in the process. He has one foot in hell, and that's part of the complexity that makes him appealing to play."
The two men will be spending time together at a Quebec military academy this week, "to chew the fat," says Dallaire. "I'm not going to try to do an imitation," says Dupuis. "For this story, what's more important is what's happening inside the man. How does he feel about these decisions? Once you seize that, other things will come into place."
Spottiswoode acknowledges the inherent challenges in bringing such a grave story to the big screen, most notably the risk of appearing to trivialize it. "The trick is to make it compelling, gripping, to make it informative without making it seem like light entertainment."
"I live with what happened in Rwanda every day," adds Dallaire. "It is with me always. If this film can make a few more people think about what happened and to understand the need to avoid it from happening again, then that's a good thing."