This dramatic classic from Syria is one of the first Arab films to deal directly with the Palestinian predicament. Three Palestinian exiles in Basra, Iraq, decide to travel to Kuwait, each leaving for his own reasons, each believing he can find economic security there. The three-a middle-aged peasant, a youth whose father has left the family, and a restless young man-hook up with a tank-truck driver who is himself a complicated and ultimately vulnerable character. Concealed in a steel water cistern, in the heat of the summer, they attempt to make it across the border. A thought-provoking parable, The Dupes is based on a 1962 novella by Palestinian writer, artist, and resistance leader Ghassan Kanafani. "In the hellish journey of the duped toward the trap of their illusionary salvation, everyone is shown to be complicit in the Palestinian defeat." (Diana Jabbour, in Critical Writing from the Arab World, Alia Arasoughly, ed.)