The deconstruction and partial reinstatement of a conventional device is a characteristic strategy in the work of Straub and Huillet. Fortini/Cani, which they made in 1977, centers on a book, I Cani del Sinai (The Dogs of the Sinai), written in response to the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of 1967 by the Florentine poet and journalist Franco Fortini, who now in the film reads aloud from his book of ten years before. At that time Fortini, a Communist and a Jew, undertook a defense of the Arabs against the pro-Israeli bias of most of his fellow countrymen and especially of his fellow Jews; his book is a polemic from a Marxist standpoint and also an elucidation of how the author came to this position from his own background as an Italian Jew. (Gilberto Perez)

,,Den Hund vom Sinai machen",
Redensart der Nomaden,
die einst durch
die wüste Hochebene
von El Tih zogen,
im Norden des Berges Sinai.
Ihre Bedeutung
schwankt zwischen:
dem Sieger zu Hilfe eilen,
auf der Seite der Herren
stehen,
edle Gefühle
zur Schau stellen.
Auf dem Sinai
gibt es keine Hunde.


See also:
A Consideration of Fortini/Cani as marxist reflection - By Jane Madsen

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