I saw this movie just by chance, but i was very glad at the end that i had this luck...I have nothing against the fact that the film included Anna and Robert's love story, even though some may say it was a mere cliché and a pretext for the unfolding of the war background... I liked the idea that two persons can get to fall in love so profoundly and faithfully, and all of a sudden...What i have to reproach, though, is the fact that the characters were somehow just the pretext for the movie's target, that was to show a realistic picture of the war and the bombings... The characters and their relationships (the relationship between Anna and Robert,for example) lacked complexity, there was not a substantial personal and inner experience to mingle with and mould itself to the experience of war and make the characters pass through a dramatic process of their life. The plot involving the love story was kind of simplistic... Of course, the film showed the pure reality, which was good- an example of common people's lives as they were, simple, and of course the trauma that marked each and every one of them, even if not in a highly personal way as i would have liked... My opinion may not be totally correct, but this is what i felt... Where I found some substantial complexity, though, was in Anna's father experience, for he did learn at the end, when he died, how vain all his intentions were in the context of all the suffering around him, he understood that his efforts to dodge the war were vain if everything- family and peace- was being destroyed by the war just under his eyes...But, on the whole the movie really marked me, and i learned how such an experience as war somehow takes the charm of love and anything else that we hold so dear and that our soul really needs to be alive and content… war makes all these in those horrible moments seem petty...less valuable, appealing to us than they were before… maybe that was why the movie centered especially on the collective suffering... and not on a highly personal experience... because presenting the particular experience of Anna and Robert was just in order to perceive the war through their eyes (that is from a realistic, authentic and not an objective perspective, an effect that a documentary would not have had), but not through their soul too, that is from a personal inner view and experience… Despite this or maybe because of this, i think the movie does deserve acclaim!

When you are going to watch a movie called "Dresden", it's logical to think that historical bombing of Dresden must be the main argument in it. Unfortunately in this movie the bombing is almost residual in its plot.We can see a beautiful (but unbelievable) love story between a British officer of the RAF and a pretty German nurse (all in a few days). No real problem about this, but for my was a disappoint because I waited for something different, for more history and less story.Finally, bombing of the city happens, of course, but it results no impressive. It was one of the most terrible bombings made in history, but in my opinion this is not reflected in the movie, and this is the main cause of its fail.Briefing, not a bad movie, but if you want to see a war movie or a disaster movie, try another.

I think a documentary about the bombing of Dresden would not have had the same effect. When you are taken along in a story and you start to identify with the people involved the impact of the Dresden bombardment makes you understand and you sure will remember it. I did not like the fact that the movie was totally in German on TV - well why had they chosen English actors for the English roles then. But I was very happy with the DVD now as here I got what I had expected and which made the whole movie more real. The English really spoke English and the English pilot had the English accent when speaking his role. I have seen Dresden in 1992 and I have seen it today with the newly built church. But born in 1970 I had not much of an idea of what really had happened during WW II there. This movie made me understand. And I really liked that it showed both sides - The German and The English.

A fictional love drama set on the background of Dresden at the end of World War II achieves to illuminate the complexity of human characters under the life-threatening terror of the Nazi-regime and the war.The excellent cast with Felicitas Woll, John Light and Benjamin Sadler as main figures involve the viewer into a very personal drama. As the screenplay avoids black-and-white-painting, multi-layered characters invite the viewer to a differentiating point of view.Realistic fire-scenes, carefully computer-animated flying-sequences and the participation of both British and German historians in pre-production contribute to a gripping movie about a sensitive point in German history.