German movies are making headway into mainstream international cinema ("Perfume" and "Head On" leap to the mind), opening up a new window from which to view stories of love, obsession, history and war. "Dresden" takes all these themes and weaves them into one episode: the bombing of Dresden during World War II.
Dresden was then compared to Italy's Firenze in terms of sheer beauty and as the hub of German academia and arts. It was also known as the "defenseless city" as it was ill-equipped with the defense batteries required to withstand a full-scale air attack. On Feb. 13, 1945 British planes began bombing the stately city and when the Allies finally called off the strikes three days later, the once beautiful city had been reduced to rubble. The German Government reported the death toll at more than 460,000, while many historians estimate the number at around 25,000 -- a sore topic of debate that continues to this day.
During the postwar years, the East German government repeatedly held the Dresden bombing over the heads of the West, and consequently the truth about its horrors never really came to light. Until the late 1990s records and research materials were not made available for viewing. As for movies, the number made about Nazi atrocities far exceeded the number that depict Germans as victims; one can imagine the difficulty of getting any funds for such productions. In that sense it's a marvel "Dresden" was created at all, and on such a lavish scale. The budget is reputed to be over 10 million euro: the highest in the history of German cinema. Directed by Roland Suso Richter ("Tunnel"), the film was originally made for German TV, then shown at various film festivals before making it to Japan.