Trapped behind enemy lines, the stress of the situation has varying impacts on four soldiers in this existential war movie from Stanley Kubrick. The film marked the great director's feature debut, and poorly received at the time, Kubrick subsequently tried to suppress it, citing the film as the work of an amateur. This controversy has lead to the film acquiring a mixed reputation over the years, but it is a far more accomplished motion picture than one might expect. While not as stylistic and innovatively shot as 'Killer's Kiss', it actually spins a more engaging narrative, focusing on war from a psychological standpoint with memorable lines such as "enemies do not exist ... unless we call them into being". In an effective touch, Kubrick also lets the characters' narrated thoughts aloud overlap at certain points, and with the way the characters discuss and debate war, Samuel Fuller's superb 1950s war movies frequently come to mind. The film's biggest weakness is the acting. Virginia Leith is superb in a brief turn in which her close-up facial expressions convey more than words possibly could, but everyone else is uneven at best with dialogue delivery sometimes stilted. A renowned perfectionist, it is no surprise that Kubrick was dissatisfied with certain elements of the film, but had he not disowned it, it is unlikely that it would be as poorly received at it often is these days. The choice to not specify the actual war or any nationalities provides the story with a welcome universal quality that resonates strongly considering all the other wars that have occurred since 1953.
Review of Fear and Desire
