Only Human
Screening: 13 March 2006
Spain/UK/Argentina/Portugal 2004
Directed by Teresa de Pelegri and Dominic Harari
Leading players ~ Norma Aleandro, Guillermo Toledo, Marián Aguilera.
89 minutes (subtitles)
Synopsis
The writers-directors de Pelegri and Harari have created a romantic comedy reminiscent of the work of Woody Allen combined with Pedro Almodóvar. Their script is wonderful and the great cast do it justice, particularly Norma Aleandro who reels off one-liners and leads with gusto.Basically the film focuses on a cross-cultural love affair. The action takes place
on the evening that Leni (Marián Aguilera) takes her fiancé to meet her Jewish family, the Dalinskys. All goes wonderfully until Rafi (Guillermo Toledo) reveals that he is a Palestinian, so turning a dinner visit with the future-in-laws into a comic nightmare. A black comedy and farce that deftly explores relationships between lovers, families, Arabs and Jews.
The ensemble cast sparkles brilliantly and confidently handles the rapid dialogue and energetic comedy. The actors are uniformly excellent, totally inhabiting their characters so that all seem quite real. We recognise something of ourselves in the dysfunctional Dalinsky family.
The directors maintain control throughout their screwball comedy and keep political and religious indifference in check. They very successfully transfer their finely turned script to the screen, with only the occasional farcical element going wrong.
An impressive element of the film is its ability to be an hilarious comedy out of a potentially tragic and timely story whilst still treating the cross-cultural love affair seriously and movingly.
Very possibly the best Spanish comedy ever ... certainly for a very long time.
* * * * * *
Film Facts
Only Human is based on the original screenplay by husband and wife team, Dominic Harari and Teresa de Pelegri.de Pelegri (Spanish) and Harari (English) met as film students in New York.
The film was written originally to be filmed in London but the setting was changed to Spain at the request of the producer
The first ever lottery-backed Spanish language feature film production between Spain and the UK.
Setting the film in Spain raised the profile of the small but very active and lively Jewish community there.
A lot of Spaniards live ignorant of the fact that there are Spanish Jews.
Most of de Pelegri's and Harari's work has been in Spain.
Films - short ROIG (1994), El Dominio de los Sentidos (1996) and Atrapa-la (2000).
Norma Aleandro is a leading Argentinian actress born into a theatrical family in 1941. An outspoken liberal, she was forced to live in exile for many years. She gave a powerful performance in The Official Story, best foreign language Oscar winner in 1986, for which she shared Best Actress prize at Cannes in 1985.
Good use is made of hand-held cameras once the film takes to Madrid's streets
Guillermo Toledo is a superstar in Spain and wasn't originally considered for the role of Rafi. He contacted the writers-directors to say that their script was the best thing he had read in a long time and he wanted to be part of the film.
