Dresden (5 Stars)

I have a difficult stand on this film. I've watched it a few times and enjoy it greatly, but film critics and fans alike think badly of it. It's been described as Romeo and Juliet meeting on the Titanic and sailing along the River Elbe to Dresden. Ouch! Although this is meant as an insult I have to admit that the film had already reminded me of "Titanic".

This is a love story set against the background of the destruction of Dresden in 1945. Robert Newman is a British bomber hiding in the cellar of a hospital in Dresden after a crash landing. He meets a nurse and they fall in love, despite the fact she's already engaged to marry a doctor. They attempt to escape together before being caught in the bombing raids of February 13th 1945.

The criticisms of the film are manifold. It's too long (3 hours). A German woman would never fall in love with a British bomber. The Nazi officers are too caricatured. I don't care. For me the film is a moving love story, showing how two people from different worlds can love each other in the middle of the most difficult circumstances. Maybe I should remove a star for the stupid voiceover at the end. "Our love did not last, because Robert's plane crashed into the north sea when he was coming to Dresden to see his baby for the first time". That could have been excused if it had been a true story, but in a work of fiction it's totally unnecessary.