Another version of Shake Hand with The Devil, telling Paul Rusesabagina’s story, a manager of a Belgian owned hotel in Rwanda.

Between April and September 1994, Rwanda was in a political uproar leading to the massacre of million of Tutsi minorities by the Hutus.It’s supposed to be very easy for Paul,a Hutu himself, despite his Tutsi wife,to simply turn his back on if not joining the euphoria of the blood shed orgy.But instead,he opened his hotel as a secret refugee,saving more than a thousand Tutsis and risking himself as another “Tutsi cockroach”.

Of course it’s easier to be said than done.On the process,Paul was entangled in certain complexities.The most interesting one was how,in spite of his own mental deprivation,he insisted on portraying himself still as a professional hotelier.Not only so that their secret refugee left unattaked, but also it’s vital for the Tutsis to maintain a sense of hope in the verge of insanity. This was clearly seen when he avoided Dube,his ever faithful staff from seeing him in the middle of his tears.

Many ironic scenes were catched here. A cynical TV journalist said to Paul when he was elated for the possibility of the world to save them when they saw the video of the massacre: “If people see this footage, they’ll say how terrible it is and then go on eating their dinner.”

But indeed the world really turned their back. The UN forces’re not allowed to shoot as they’re told to be the “peace keepers”,not the “peace makers”. Although the Tutsis were defenseless without military power to support them, there’s clearly enough foreign army in Rwanda to do that.The problem was they’re ordered only to evacuate the foreigners, even not including Paul, who had swallowed all the ridiculous western manners,wine,and chocolates through his life. He’s still black and he’s not even a nigger.

To survive this tumult and save the people in his care,Paul was forced to be smart in making quick decisions.All along his years,he had been raised to understand the true strength of power.As a wheeler-dealer he realized the importance of trading favors here as well as how thousand of lives at his hand relied on his stock of cigars and scotch left to bribe the Hutu
military.

And as if everything he had done was not enough, in the last second, when his family finally obtained the visa required to get out off Rwanda, Paul even decided to stay behind in the hotel with the rest of Tutsis which led his wife and kids to hysteria when they were evacuated by UN convoy.

Unlike SHTD, Hotel Rwanda was downlaying the actual gore. But still, the movie would bring you not only to feel that your heart was being squeezed out by the irony, but also to the brink of helpless alarm how the seething hatred would finally burst.