statesofunrest I enjoyed this movie but I can see why Stanley Kubrick did his best to try to destroy every copy after it was released. It only exists today because at the time Kodak made a copy of the film before Kubrick could destroy every other copy in existence. It's good too because I think it is important to know Kubrick's origins as a movie-maker (outside of a few short documentaries) and definitely his first script that made it to the silver screen. I guess I was most impressed that it was a movie from 1952. To put that into context, it's the same year that "Singing in the Rain" came out, and the ideas and film-making techniques presented here were way ahead of their time. I think that Stanley was maybe trying to put too many ideas into what is essentially a short film. It makes it feel much longer as your watching it than it actually is, and not always for the better.Some of the problems I had, and these are more problems with being what is more or less a student film than anything else, some of the acting was poor, a few times it was a bit too obvious that the dubbing was done over the original sound (if there was sound originally, I'm not sure). I wish the girl had a bigger part. I wish Kubrick knew how to properly encode things here and didn't just spell everything out for the audience, then Kubrick wouldn't have felt so ashamed and this could have a Room 237 all its own. Okay, it probably wouldn't actually, I mean Dr. Strangelove is also heavily encoded but there's no "CRM 114" movie or something like that explaining how it's all a metaphor for Kubrick staging the Kennedy assassination or something equally as crazy.I digress, I did enjoy the film, I liked that it focused mostly on a small group of men caught in a bad situation, but focused on them each as individuals as the movie went on. We saw how with one of them the pressure gets to be too much and what happens with them after. I liked the captain a lot who also ended playing the General, the enemy in the movie. I liked that it wasn't clear who was on which side for the entirety of the movie as the whole thing is meant as a metaphor for war itself rather than any war specifically. It's just that these things don't come off in the right way, I think. I know what he's going for, he's showing the horrors of war and the war itself doesn't matter, you'll notice they attack people who can't defend themselves, the General himself says "I surrender" before they kill him. In the context of their enemy, the men we follow are savages. I think it's not even clear whether they can even understand what the enemy soldiers say. I mean, after all, the woman they capture can't speak their language and her single-word only line in the movie, "boat," she says like she's just sounding out the words they are saying. It has some interesting scenes and I don't think Kubrick needed to be so hard on himself for making it. I would recommend this to both fans of Kubrick and fans of movies from the 50s. For its time, it's really unique.

Leofwine_draca FEAR AND DESIRE is a low budget war feature that feels very much like a B-movie; it has a limited cast, a workable script, and a general lack of scope and budget which means there are no big or realistic action sequences. Instead, this is a psychological character drama which looks at the effects of combat on the mind of the average soldier, and how it can drive an ordinary man to madness. This is only of interest for being the debut feature of the acclaimed Stanley Kubrick, whose work here is pedestrian to say the least; I found the whole picture heavy-handed and unremarkable.

George Roots (GeorgeRoots) "Fear and Desire", just got a wonderful home release after being somewhat absent for the longest time. I've got to be honest with you right now, this movie is nothing special. It doesn't really show the beginnings of Kubrick's talents, and unfortunately never becomes engaging during its running time. I recommend it to his most devoted fans, because I think it remains a relic and in Kubrick's own words he describes it as: "A bumbling amateur film exercise"."There is a War in this forest. Not a War that has been fought, nor one that will be, but any War. And the enemies who struggle here do not exist unless we call them into being. This forest then, and all that happens now is outside history".The level of effort Kubrick went into making it is to be admired, using whatever means possible regardless how unintentionally deadly the possible side effects were (For fog Kubrick used a crop sprayer, but the cast and crew were nearly asphyxiated because the machinery still contained the insecticide used for its agricultural work). The acting is nothing special, and what was originally planned as a silent picture doesn't really earn any points for the addition of music (Though it would be interesting to see all this without the sound).Final Verdict: Nothing special from the master film-maker, don't rush yourself to see it. 4/10.

Dalbert Pringle Fear And Desire (from 1953) is the low-budget, first feature-film directed by legendary movie-maker, Stanley Kubrick, who was but a budding, young film student at the time.Containing some striking camera-work and intense character interaction, this marginally violent War picture tells the tale of 4 soldiers who, after their plane crash-lands, find themselves stranded in a forested region behind the lines of an unnamed enemy in an unidentified country.In order to rejoin their unit, these 4 G.I.s must cautiously make their way downriver without being detected by their foe.Before embarking on their treacherous journey, these tired and weary young men must formulate a workable plan to locate the enemy's headquarters and, thus, assassinate its commanding officer.Filmed in stark b&w, this somewhat intriguing picture has a brief running time of only 60 minutes.