The Recce

Just like sinkholes – these gaping holes that, since the 1980s, have damaged the roads and tourist sites along the shores of the Dead Sea (which bathes Israel but also Jordan and the occupied West Bank) at breathtaking speed – SALARIUM causes a collapse in the viewers’ perception: it obliterates their conception of this territory as being essentially empty, a space offered to tourists for its salty uniqueness. Drawing on the shared etymology of the words “salary” and “soldier”, the filmmakers re-inject a strand of history and politics into this space now given up to leisure (three soldiers enjoy their ice cream on the beach, a group of fifty-somethings living on the edge of the Judean Desert unpack their soda cans, deckchairs and transistors).

The fact that Yoel Kanovich didn’t report for the army reserve training he was summoned to is by no means his only problem. His marriage to Sigal is on the rocks, his father recently died of a heart attack, and on top of that he’s lost his job as a history teacher. His nerves apparently got the better of him during a lesson on the Balfour Declaration, of all things.