Dresden - The TV Movie

The destruction of Dresden is widely considered one of WW2's darkest moments - a War Crime in many eyes. Comparisons with the bombing of Coventry are often made but however horrific,whilst Coventry lost some 1200 inhabitants, figures for Dresden vary due to refugee numbers at the time but are currently estimated at some 25 - 35000 people.
A necessary raid that by chance good weather and poor defences turned out deadlier than expected? Or pre-planned mass murder of civilians? It is, even today, a controversial topic.
Does making it relevant to todays younger generation require it be given a Hollywood 'makeover'? A recent made for television film by German director Roland Richter thought so...

General reviews of the show, which ran over two nights, were not encouraging. One reviewer suggested it was amazing what they could do with parachute silk in those days (suggesting the costumes were too fancy for the time), whilst others found the included love story at best an irritating diversion from the reality being reconstructed and at worst quite ludicrous (particularly when the hero and heroine consumate their new found love in a hospital bed surrounded by patients all of whom sleep on oblivious!) This was 'Titanic' on dry land. A girl due to make a loveless marriage discovers a mysterious stranger. The aim was to appeal to younger viewers - and what better way than this trusted 'love story' format? The producers, in defence, claimed that this love story was based on a factual encounter between a British Pilot and a German nurse - maybe they will 'go public' to at least give a bit more support? then again, having read the reviews, probably they won't!

John Light ('Band of Brothers') as bomber pilot Robert Newman never has enough dialogue to properly establish himself sympathetically and is left having to make his face do all the talking - 'smouldering meaningfully' into the camera. Felicitas Woll as Anna has plenty to say but just seems a petulant youth rebelling against her strict parents rather than creating a platform whereby she and Light can establish their characters .

The script seemed to be trying to give everybodys' viewpoint. Jews, Allies, Germans, all get a snippet of dialogue to state what is in reality a complicated case. Take the British viewpoint: We have an officer at HQ who questions the evolving bombing plans and allows thereby the 'Bomber Harris' strategic standpoint to be stated: Final proof that the war is over for Germany, cutting the lines of troop/supply reinforcements completely (which could have been done just by further bombing the railway?, destroying major factories) and to balance him we have too a pilot 'with a conscience' voicing protests. But then again we have a pilot recalling that he had family killed in Coventry so Dresden 'deserves what it gets'. There is little need to defend the humanist viewpoint - part two is largely given over to graphic scenes of flaming infernos and Dresden citizens trapped in underground bunkers suffocating - even begging to be shot by soldiers rather than prolong their agonies.

It's easy to claim failure by the director for the films shortcomings but I would however say 'hats off' in the end for even attempting to cover a very controversial moment of recent history. If the english scenes had been solely in english with german sub-titles instead of a mish-mash of sometimes english sometimes english soldiers speaking german; and if the hero and heroine had had more to say maybe things would have beeen better. This was trumpeted as a major tv film for 2006 after all - maybe it should have been a mini series instead? Characters could then have evolved until they had our more of our sympathy.

When I asked German colleagues the next day for their opinions I was unable to find anyone who had actually watched it. An elder colleague said he had heard enough about it in the years following 1945 to last a lifetime which was understandable. But this was aimed at younger tv viewers and they were seemingly not interested enough to see it. Presumably they did not watch because they expected a crusty documentary style film and so missed the 'big' love story that was supposed to attract them in the first place with the result it was watched by the very people who didn't want the Hollywood style love story they found.

Ultimately my question remains - Is it justifiable to 'dumb down' history into a romance in order to reach a younger target group? If so, in the case of 'Dresden' it seems to have failed - in the end, in attempting to attract the young it only ended up disappointing the old.

Links:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,400691,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2071502,00.html

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/3/0,1872,3881603,00.html