Among the first films to ever address the Palestinian struggle, The Dupes takes place sometime in the 50's Iraq, though shot in 72 Syria. A long, black and white film, it focuses on various characters and their struggle to get out of Iraq and into Kuwait to get high paying jobs. Each of them visits professional smugglers, but the smugglers ask too much money, they try to walk, but it isn't easy in the hot Middle East August sun. Finally they meet a man, who only seems to care for money, but has the most promising plan - he takes the three of them in his water tank truck across the border illegally.
To me, the strongest theme in this film was that nobody was doing anything to help. Here they were, men with low paying jobs, families, escaping particular social issues and offer of relief, rather the opposite, they were each trying to get some kind of money out of them. Whether they were the professional smugglers charging high prices for illegal acts of desperation, or fathers trying to marry off their daughters, or even other fathers leaving their family for a woman with money, nobody was standing up to anything that mattered. The fragmentation of society, and the deeper fragmentation of Arab society. Here they were, three penniless men trying to find a livelihood, but not the Iraqis nor the Kuwaitis that they came across would help them, rather they were interested in money and stories of sex-capades with dancers.
The film is based on a novella, Men in the Sun, by Ghassan Kanafani, which was written in 1962.
I was glad to have watched it today as the same themes still resonate.
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