Fear and Desire
Fear and Desire
Member's Rating
  • Currently 3/5} Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Rate this movie

0 1 2 3 4 5

Rent this DVD

Synopsis

An existential war film that is often compared with Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY (1957) among three Kubrick films selected for the Library's National Film Registry-and FULL METAL JACKET (1987), FEAR AND DESIRE follows a squad of soldiers who have crash-landed behind enemy lines and must work their way downriver to rejoin their unit. In the process, they encounter a peasant girl (Virginia Leith) and tie her to a tree, where she is tormented by a mentally unbalanced soldier (future director Paul Mazursky). Before making their escape, the soldiers determine the location of an enemy base and formulate a plot to assassinate its commanding officer. Independently financed, and shot by a skeleton crew - with Kubrick controlling almost every aspect of production - FEAR AND DESIRE was conceived as a European-style art film, cloaked in the guise of a Hollywood war picture. Kubrick described the film to distributor Joseph Burstyn as allegorical and poetic. ''A drama of 'man', lost in a hostile world-deprived of material and spiritual foundations-seeking his way to an understanding of himself, and of life around him.'' This disc also includes Kubrick's short film "The Seafarers." Stanley Kubrick--USA--1953--61 mins.

Reviews of 'Fear and Desire'

Write Your Own Online Review