Les Dupes

Tewfik Saleh's newly restored 1972 Al-Makhdu'un/Duped / The Decieved has abruptly become topical. I just watched it in a lecture theatre in Sydney University a minute's walk from the tent camp set up by Gaza protesters there. Predictably discussion centered on the situation in Palestine rather than the film.

This one can be considered authentic Arab cinema, the major movie culture that English speakers know the least, shot in Syria & Iraq by an Egyptian film maker who trained in Paris. He made a succession of these issues-based films contrasting with the entertainment movies done around them, before shifting to Nationalist material, including a Sadam Hussain biography. The Dupes drew the attention of Martine Scorsese's Film Preservation Foundation and reaches us as an excellent transfer.

The film's Palestinian story is drawn from "The Men in the Sun" a novel by Marxist writer Ghassan Kanafani, later killed by MOSSAD. The origin is visible in occasional literary language - "A man without a country will have no grave on this earth" or Kheir-Halouani's recalling "whenever I'm lying on the ground, I can smell the scent of my wife's hair when she's just had a cold bath." Commentators more familiar with the work than I am detect symbolic references to betrayal by the Arab leadership.

The early material is confusing, particularly to someone not up to speed on the 1948 Nakba when Israel's Declaration of Independence was followed by the deportation of three quarters of a million Palestinians to West Bank refugee camps. Footage of Mohamed Kheir-Halouani, struggling across the desert on foot, is cross-cut with historical actuality and scenes of camp life.

Potentially interesting elements vanish - like the school teacher, whose European suit contrasts with his students' families' traditional clothing and is unable to lead Koranic prayers the way his predecessor did.

The development becomes more linear as extra characters are added, refugees seeking refuge in Kuwait and a paid job that will mean better lives than the ones they have. Kheir-Halouani's family have been traditional peasant farmers for generations, and he dreams he will escape dependence on UNRWA Aid Packages and be able to own a piece of land and a couple of olive trees. Self-reliant young Bassan Lofti Abou-Ghazala will avoid a marriage, planned for him when he and the wife were babies, and school boy Saleh Kholoki (?) will be able to support the family left destitute when his father divorced them to escape their mud walled home to his new peg legged wife's house with its concrete roof.

The film doesn't field two dimensional villains. The deadbeat dad offers the family a room in his new home, which the boy's mother refuses and he is moved by the boy's departure. The women are passive but sympathetically drawn - supporting the men's choices or preparing a meal for the trip. These would-be emigrants meet when they face people smugglers who they distrust - inset scene of being left to walk across the wasteland to rejoin a driver at the highway, only to find no one waiting and depend on hitching. Instead the trio are recruited by truck driver Abdul Rahman Al Rashi, who is a defeated veteran of the British army, injured in the war. ("I lost my manhood and my nation") All that remains to him is accumulating money. He proposes an illegal border crossing in the tank of his worn water truck. The film's ambivalence is particularly strong with his character.

This is the point where The Dupes pulls away from a being a simple curiosity, with strong visuals and intense development. Images of the black tanker crossing the desert under the blazing sun (border patrols search vehicles at night), as the score strikes up, come punctuated by dialogue exchanges where the driver exhorts his passengers to endure. Comparisons with Salaire de la peur are common but the film also evokes La Bataille du rail, The English Patient or even Plunder Road. The imagery becomes extraordinary - cross cutting the tank thumping sounds and the border post air conditioning units, sweat evaporating on the metal surface, the dead hand raised against the sky. The film's statement, its condemnation, is stronger for not being verbalised.

Technique is uneven. Even for the intended audience, the time structure of the opening must have been a challenge. The scene cross cutting the baby and the new foliage is laboured symbolism and shots of Al Rashi driving are obviously filmed in a stationary vehicle. His abrupt stop with the sun in his face is awkward.

Seen in isolation The Dupes is a finally impressive curiosity. Placing it in the context of its society and its film industry would be fascinating. We can only hope.