Okay, the bombing of Dresden was a traumatic event. However, this movie treats that event as some kind of surrealistic happening which significantly understates the horror of what occurred there. Politics aside, a lot of people died there, died horrible deaths, yet,as much as it tries, this movie does little to evoke any feeling of compassion, the reason being that the story is told from the vantage point of an American, not a German. Perhaps if the story was told through another character, let's say, an eight year old German child who lost his or her entire family, then perhaps the movie would have been much stronger. War is subject not to be joked about or played with. It does not lend itself to a whimsical approach. The main character in this movie, an American soldier, is traumatized but his flashbacks are silly, completely out of place with the movie's somber theme, that war damages people, psychologically as well as physically.
Review of Slaughterhouse-Five
