Trolleys rattle, the cash till beeps and the loudspeakers ceaselessly advertise special offers. In acoustic terms alone the things the cashiers of a supermarket in Tel Aviv are forced to endure are an imposition. If you do this job, underpaid and right at the bottom of the social scale, you don’t have much to lose – at least that’s what the boss thinks. He constantly plagues the shift supervisor with suggestions and orders on how to cut more wages, save more staff, promote competitiveness, or make working hours more flexible. While one feels how the noose around the women’s necks – most of them Russian immigrants and single mothers or 55 plus – is tightening …
By precise observation and structuring, Yael Kipper and Ronen Zaretzky manage to achieve a social study of great clarity and emotion. Moments of intimacy and closeness when the women talk about their problems in the breakfast room or smoke a cigarette by the delivery entrance alternate with the monotony of a thoroughly automated working world. In which the women, who were once Julia, Maya, Nella, Ella, and Levana, are reduced to cheap human resources. The film gives them back their dignity, not just by showing their world as what it is (too): great cinema. The fairy tale- (and fiction-)like ending explains “Super Women” of the title, compared to whom the hero with the “S” on his chest is a pale little manikin.

Grit Lemke

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Honorary Mention in the International Competition Documentary Film 2013