Dino Buzzati's 1940 novel, The Desert of the Tartars, is a discomforting story about man's basic fear of the unknown. In Zurlini's film, the fear is symbolized by a dreadful desert nestled on the edge of some unknown country. A looming fortress towers over the desert, and its garrison has been commissioned to prevent any incursions by an unspecified enemy. For years, these neo-Crusaders are nourished by futile ritual and the presumed existence of chimerical enemies. Actor Jacques Perrin, who plays Drogo, a young officer, and is also the Executive Producer, worked eight years to bring this story to the screen. But the real star is the fortress of Bam in south-east Iran, a strange purgatory for the aristocratic officers who inhabit it. 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. Zurlini erects an arid, surrealistic vision by means of stylized acting, repetition and unnatural colors: it's as if Buñuel had directed La Grande Illusion.