We present this Zurlini gem in tribute to a great Italian actor, Vittorio Gassman, who died this year. The film is an extraordinary showcase for him, and for Zurlini regular Jacques Perrin, who produced the film, and a host of international stars (Von Sydow, Noiret, Rey, Trintignant). Dino Buzzati's 1940 novel is a discomforting story about man's basic fear of the unknown. In the film this fear is symbolized by its location, a dreadful desert on the edge of some unknown country. A looming fortress (filmed at the fortress of Bam, in southeast Iran) is a strange purgatory for the aristocratic officers who inhabit it, latter-day Crusaders devoted to the defense against chimerical enemies. This tale about man's need for illusion takes on Kafkaesque qualities as the garrison becomes entrenched in its ritualized preparations for the enemy-that-never-comes. The enemy that triumphs will be the combined forces of illness and ennui. Zurlini erects an arid, hyperreal landscape to support a surrealistic vision, as if Buñuel had directed La Grande Illusion.