In the award-winning film, Only Human (Seres Queridos, Spain, 2004), which recently opened in Israel under the Hebrew name Rak Ben-Adam, Leni, the successful young professional daughter of Gloria and Ernesto Dali (originally Dalinsky), brings home her new boyfriend, Rafi, to meet the parents.
The Dalis, a relatively observant Jewish Spanish family living in Madrid, are first introduced to Rafi as an Israeli man. Turns out Rafi’s Palestinian and the family has no choice but to get used to it. Soon enough we find ourselves facing a black humor-filled wacky comedy that makes sure everything that could possibly go wrong, certainly will.
Gloria, a real Yidishe mama crossed with early Almodóvar melodramatics and neuroses, runs the burgeoning household, while the absentee father, Ernesto, fills the minor role of financial supporter, and appears only towards the end of the movie.
David, the only son in a family of three children, is the family’s ambassador of Orthodoxy. Towards the Sabbath he drives the family up the wall by taping down all electricity switches and hides all phones. He protests the fact that the family’s shtetl last name has been assimilated into a Spanish one, and attempts to teach his niece Hebrew behind her mother’s back.
There is also the blind grandfather, Dudu, who enjoys knife tricks and hoards the rifle he used in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence in his bedroom closet—just in case.
Leni and Rafi seem to represent well-adjusted happiness in the midst of the family’s constant state of emergency. Leni, who at first chooses to veil her boyfriend’s true identity, later wishes to test her family: can they judge him as a person and get past his background? He is certainly characterized with the same empathy and humor as his female lead; there is nothing stereotypically Palestinian about him. He is, after all, only human.
The couple’s dialogue convincingly revolves around the question of whether their love is possible against the odds. They have much in common: from their shared intellectual interests or their joint reference to the leery airline representative as “the Nazi.”
Nonetheless, when they come home for Friday night dinner with the family, they are swiftly sucked into the pandemonium of this modern Jewish domestic scene. Perceived as an Israeli Jew, Rafi is greeted warmly and absurdly: David welcomes him in Hebrew and Dudu asks in which Israeli wars the young man fought. “The first intifada,” is his poker-faced reply.
Helping in the kitchen by waging a dangerous culinary battle on a frozen block of chicken soup, Rafi tries to ingratiate himself with the Dali family, while Leni fends off nosy inquiries into the intimate dynamics of her relationship. To further stoke the flames, she finally declares an alleged fetish of swathing herself in an Israeli flag while having her partner throw stones at her.
Directed by Dominic Harari and Teresa Pelegri, a Jewish-Jewish couple who met while studying at Columbia University, Only Human cleverly depicts a minority (Rafi) functioning within a minority (the Dali family). The film succeeds at whimsically illustrating the global ramification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jewish assimilation.
On these grounds, the film is enormously amusing, but it proves problematic on others. Orthodox Judaism is greatly exaggerated in its representation, while the only acceptable form of observance seems to be the Dali’s modern lifestyle that integrates a traditional Sabbath meal. While the messages the film imparts are resonant and optimistic, they lead to a bottom line that is simplistic, though enduring: nobody’s perfect. Despite its flaws, though, Only Human is a well-written and thoroughly entertaining film, and is warmly recommended.
