I'm back at Pearl's since yesterday, and for the past two nights I've been watching a miniseries called "Dresden", made for German TV in 2006. If you've been reading recent blogs, you know that I just finished a book about the bombing of that city during World War Two, and was moved enough to do some Googling afterward, to see if there were any movies on the subject. I found "Dresden" in the library system and sat down to watch, beginning last night after Pearl had gone to bed. It's a three hour film, presented in two parts, and I won't go into a lengthy description except to say that the focus of the story is a love triangle, the bombing raid is the background, and grand finale is horrendous, akin to the descriptions read in Sinclair Macay's book.
In brief, an English pilot is shot down over the German countryside during a prior bomb run. He somehow manages to make his way to the city of Dresden, blending in to the bedraggled masses ground down by the attrition of war. He speaks enough German to get by, and ends up hiding in a hospital basement, hoping to get treatment for his wounds (he was shot by a villager after parachuting to the ground).
In the basement, he encounters a German nurse, who at first is frightened of him, but because she believes in the Hippocratic Oath, she bandages him up and helps him to stay hidden. She thinks he's a deserter and isn't aware he's English until later. The nurse is engaged to be married to a young German doctor, but she soon falls in love with her concealed English Patient. Her end of the plot is all tied up in the patriarchal politics of Fascist culture. Her father and her fiancee are in cahoots with the Gestapo to steal and sell the hospital's dwindling morphine supply. She doesn't really love the doctor and is only marrying him because it's expected of her. Soon, she is ready to run off with her Englishman, to London or wherever fate may take them.
But the Lancasters are preparing for takeoff, and on the night of February 13, 1945, beginning at 10:03pm, any plans made, by the young lovers or anyone else, will be thrown into a maelstrom resembling the 9th Circle of Hell. I'll spare you the grim details except to say that in the last half hour, the movie depicts a truncated but authentic looking version of events detailed in the book.
The love story is heartfelt but told in conventional dramatic fashion, and in that respect the film resembles most of the modern productions of similar topic (think of "The Reader" for general reference), however, when the bombing raid finally arrives, the actuality of what took place is shown with no holds barred.
I read about these things, and watch movies about them, because I want to try to comprehend, in this case, a real life horror that took place only fifteen years before I was born. I feel that people should not just worship celebrity "bling bling" culture and constantly move forward in a world where numbskulls are deleting history they don't like, but instead that real history should not only be taught but mandated to school children (in appropriate form, minus the gruesome details), so that the reality of the World Wars will not be swept into the trash can. I worry because right now we see all these nutcases on the Right, some even in our Congress like that woman from Georgia, who have a similar Fascist agenda, based on the same type of paranoia that fueled Hitler. In the past, she'd have never gotten elected because we had an informed population. I do think the Internet has caused an enormous decline in the sanity of our nation, because it has allowed all the neuroses and psychoses of every individual nutjob in a country of 360 million to be hurled into the I-stream, on Facebook and Twitter and whatever the heck have you. And now some of these nutjobs, who aren't even professional politicians but are bar owners or gun nuts (or both), are now elected members of congress.
This is something that never would have happened before the Internet, and we've got to get control over all of this (and I include, as always, nuts on the Left as well as the Right).
Well, end of rant and end of story. I just don't want anything bad to happen, so I feel like a watchman in the spiritual sense. It's important to look at the big picture and project a positive spirit into the world, even in a quiet way, to counteract all the derangement and aggressive negativity. ////
I've also been watching episodes of "Project Blue Book" Season Two, also acquired from the Libe. It's an incredible show, very exciting and informative, in the field of UFOs. Highly recommended. ////
Elizabeth, I'm glad you're back and I'm glad you're writing. Your new melody is expressive as always and it's fair to say that you've developed your own style. I hope you will keep working with string backgrounds; they really add counterpoint and emotion. If you complete you newest piece, post the whole thing if you feel like it. I'd love to hear it. I hope everything is going well for you. Keep the faith until the pandemic is over, and you'll be right back in the thick of things creatively speaking, in the world where you belong. :):)
That's all for tonight. The rain just started pouring down a minute ago, supposed to continue all day tomorrow. See you in the morning.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxo :):)
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