Synopsis: An existential war film often compared with the director's Paths and Glory (1957) 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 bind 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.