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Beautiful, moving film.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This movie was horrible. The acting was either dull and flat, or way over the top. This wasn't a B movie, but a no budget Z movie. Some of the worst and I mean worst acting in history. Also, a junior high school student in a dumb bell English class could of written a better script. This was suppose to be an earth shattering artist anti war film, but it is pure trash. They whole film has a complete fake look to it. The action scenes look like they were done by a high school drama class. One of the main characters goes out of his mind for no reason and then goes and kills a woman for no reason either. Everyone in the film is wearing a bizarre mixture of military uniforms. Three are wearing Waffen SS battle fatigues and Nazi helmets. Six guards are wearing Japanese military uniforms and helmets, the two generals are wearing German dress uniforms, and the main.character is wearing a World War II US. flight style uniform. Bizarre film not worth seeing. Horrible trash.

Made in 1954 this was Stanley Kubrick's first film and shortly afterwards he tried to disown it and not deciding not to re-release the print. However, it was processed by Kodak and they had a policy of making a spare copy for their archives and this is the version we see today. It is set during a fictitious war with fictitious armies and no explanation as to why they are at war. Four soldiers are lost behind enemy lines and have to get back to their side. On the way they encounter the locals, the enemies air base and have to face up to a few demons of their own – not always successfully.Now some have panned this film, whilst fans still rave about its authenticity etc. The main characters wear German WW II helmets with camouflage on them and are American – the enemy also speak English and are white American looking. The acting is very one dimensional with no one writing an Oscar acceptance speech. The concepts of fear and desire are examined but in a way that is far from in depth, but it still is watchable but is not a film I will be recommending to friends unless they are a massive Kubrick fan.

From the filmmaking standards of director Stanley Kubrick, Fear and Desire is a terrible film. As a debut feature however, there have been far worse examples in cinema. It's more like an experiment gone wrong rather than a polished presentation and one can understand why Kubrick himself tried to acquire all its prints in order to prevent it from ever being seen again.Set in an unspecified country where a fictitious war is brewing, Fear and Desire tells the story of 4 desperate soldiers trapped behind enemy lines and covers their plan of making it back to friendly territory. Their decision to build a raft & float back under the cover of nightfall is ultimately sidetracked when they are discovered by a young woman which then forces the soldiers to confront their fates & desires.There is not a single thing present in the film that can serve as an indicator of a filmmaker who would go on to become one of cinema's most influential figures as the direction is pretty stale & the themes aren't properly addressed as well. Still, not everything is bad here as its attempt to deal with the subject of war without taking sides & portrayal of human temptations is worth mentioning even if it comes off rather too pretentious.The performances aren't any impressive too as the actors either end up being too hammy in their given roles or have no idea how to react in front of the camera. On an overall scale, Fear and Desire may manage to impress in bits n pieces but for the majority of its runtime, it's a shallow experience that viewers should check out if they're hellbent on finishing Kubrick's filmography, else it can be skipped.

This is the only Kubrick non-documentary I had not seen so, in spite of having read many negative comments (even from Kubrick himself), I figured I needed to see it. I have a hard time finding anything good to say about it--the acting, story, and music are decidedly sub-par. Usually there is some hint of things to come in the early works of most geniuses. Think of Orson Welles when he made "Citizen Kane"--he was about the same age as Kubrick when Kubrick made "Fear and Desire." Welles did make the comment that he began at the top and worked his way down, quite the opposite from Kubrick. How Kubrick could come back from "Fear and Desire" to direct "Paths of Glory" only four years later is hard to fathom. It would be like Einstein not being able to handle simple algebra in 1900 and then coming up with special relativity in 1905.At just over an hour this has the look of an early, and forgettable, television drama. As director, producer, cinematographer, and editor this is pretty much a wholly owned Kubrick effort. No wonder he tried to suppress its release.