Only Human directed by Dmonic Harari and Teresa Pelegri, Argentina/ Spain, 2004, 89 min., 35 mm, Spanish w/subtitles        

By Donald H. Harrison 

Rafi (Guillermo Toledo) is going to meet the parents of his fiancée Leni (Marián Aguilara)  for the first time.  Can you imagine going to a Jewish home where the older sister (María Botto)  is openly promiscuous, the younger brother (Fernando Ramallo)  has suddenly decided to become shomer Shabbas,  the blind grandfather (Max Berliner)  likes to load his rifle by touch and point it haphazardly, the mother (Norma Aleandro)  is concerned that her husband (Mario Martin)  is cheating on her, and the young, all-seeing niece (Alba Molinero) can't fall asleep unless she sucks on someone else's finger. But the zaniness of this family isn't really the issue here.  The suitor's nationality is.  Rafi is a Palestinian.

In a private moment, the mother warns the daughter about the impossibility of such marriages.  "Mom, we love each other!" declares Leni.  "So did Romeo and Juliet!" responds the mother.  "That was the Middle Ages," protests Leni.  "This is the Middle Ages," responds the mother.  

That conversation is almost the last in the film that you could have predicted.  Leni, who once attempted suicide when she was unhappy, stills her mother's objections with her sadness.  Rafi, meanwhile, trying to be helpful around the house, clumsily tries to chop the frozen soup out of its container. It pops from his hands and tumbles out the apartment window, falling on a passerby far  below.  Now, Rafi fears,  not only is he a Palestinian, he's a killer!


Rafi (Guillermo Toledo) leaning out the window to see what happened to man hit by a 
large soup container, is surprised by the curious mother (Norma Aleandro) of his
fiancée in Only Human, a selection of the San Diego Jewish Film Festival. 

Worse, he sees that the victim is bald, just like the picture the niece grew of  Leni's father, who still hasn't arrived home from work. And from that point, well, you just have to sit back and watch the situation unfold.

Everybody, I imagine, will take away different things from the film.  I was particularly interested in the discord that results when one member of a family, but not all, attempts to observe the laws of Shabbat.  There's one scene when David is removing a long pepperoni from the refrigerator--traif!--and the mother snatches it from him, saying it's not kosher to waste food either.

Another interesting issue explored in the film is the effect one child's troubles may have on the other children in the family, as they see that the troubled child is consuming the attention of the parents.  

This is a farce worth seeing.

Only Human will be presented twice during the 16th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival: at 8:45 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 11, at the AMC La Jolla Theatres, and at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 12, at the Hazard Center UltraStar.