Make laugh — not war

Jewish Telegraph, May 2005

WHEN husband and wife filmmakers Dominic Harari and Teresa De Pelegrí came up with the idea for Only Human, they never intended it to be a ‘message movie’.
“We just wanted it to work as a comedy,” London-born Dominic said.
Only Human tells the story of Leni Dalinsky taking her Palestinian fiance home to meet her Jewish family.
Reviews in the British press have compared the Spanish language film to Meet the Parents, but Dominic revealed: “We actually wrote and shot it before Meet the Parents. But the comparisons don’t detract from our film.”
Teresa added: “If the comparison brings more people in to see our film then that’s good.”
Were they worried about using the Middle East conflict as a storyline for a comedy?
Dominic said: “The essence of comedy is to take the painful side of life and treat it absurdly.
“Using the conflict gives the film originality. With Life is Beautiful, we were not laughing at the Holocaust, we were laughing at the absurd side of the Holocaust.
“Our motto was ‘make laugh, not war’.”
“The producers were worried about the reaction to the film but we weren’t because all the characters were so human.
“And with the argument at the end which becomes political, we give both sides so it’s a balanced film.
“Obviously we are worried that there could be some nutter out there who could be offended.”
His Barcelona-born wife added: “People have always used humour to cope with bad things. In every conflict there are human stories and funny moments.”
The directors also used the film to “destroy stereotypes”.
Dominic said: “They don’t look particular types. Rafi looks quite Jewish while the Dalinsky family could be any background.
“We want to reinforce the idea that people look like each other.”
He added: “There has never been a film before portraying a Jewish family in Spain. Setting it in Spain makes it more fresh and appetising.
“The Jewish community in Madrid is so small that most people don’t even realise it exists.
“The Palestinian community is even smaller. The main Muslim community is made up of Moroccans.”
Israeli distributor, Shani Films, will show Only Human at the Jerusalem Film Festival in the autumn.
“It’s been shown in Turkey, which is a Muslim country, and it went down well,” Dominic said.
“If it opens dialogue between the two sides that would be good but the film won’t solve the problems.
“Maybe people will see that they are all alike.
“As Jewish filmmakers, our challenge was to laugh at ourselves and to humanise Rafi as much as possible. The basis of Jewish humour is to laugh at ourselves and our culture.”
Teresa added: “No conscious effort was made to avoid the style of Pedro Almodovar (Spain’s most famous director), although we are fans of his movies. We made the film how we wanted to make it.”
Dominic said that although it was an English co-production, they didn’t know when they made it that it would be shown around the world.
As such, mention is made in the film of Spanish department store El Corte Ingles. The subtitles translate it as Benetton!
In the film Rafi believes he has accidentally killed Leni’s father with a block of frozen soup.
But he is cruelly given hope twice that it isn’t Mr Dalinsky — only to be plunged straight back into despair by twists in the script.
Dominic said: “That was a deliberate ploy to get the audience involved.”
Teresa added: “He is put in a situation where he doesn’t care that he may have killed a stranger, but just that he might have killed Leni’s father.”
Leni’s weird family includes a promiscuous sister, an Orthodox brother, a mad blind grandfather, a young niece who pretends to be pregnant and a Jewish mother to end all Jewish mothers.
“Everyone we speak to says ‘that’s my mother’,” Teresa laughed, while Dominic said: “The characters are a tribute to members of our families — with things exaggerated.”
Referring to a scene early in the film, he added: “And I can hold a toothbrush under my breast.”
That scene features nudity and pushes the rating up to a 15.
With reviews mentioning Meet the Parents, youngsters who would want to see the film would not be able to attend.
Dominic replied: “We hadn’t really thought about it, but it is a valid point.
“We conceived Only Human as an adult film. In Spain there is no big deal about nudity.
“Bare breasts are more common in Spanish and French films. Next time, we will have the actress in a bra.”
Casting for the film was quite easy as Dominic and Teresa had actors in mind.
“We told Maria Botto that we wanted her for the role of Leni’s sister Tania,” they said.
“Guillermo Toledo is one of the hottest comedians in Spain. We met him and realised that he could play the character.
“Max Berliner who plays blind grandfather Dudu is the only Jewish actor in the film. He was born in Warsaw but left when he was two.
“We received an email from him today (Wednesday) saying that he has just starred in a production of The Golem in Buenos Aires.
Though written in New York, where the couple were living, initially the story was to be set in London.
Producers Mariela Besuievsky and Gerardo Herrero of Tornasol films became intrigued by the project. They had previously produced the film Sinverguenza which the couple had co-written and they convinced them to transplant Only Human to Madrid.
Teresa and Dominic met in New York whilst studying for their masters degrees at Columbia University.
Teresa was raised Catholic and attended a convent school.
In New York, she became an atheist and then converted to Masorti Judaism to marry Dominic.
Their first collaboration as writer-directors was the short film Roig (1994). Next was Gusto one of five sketches in the film El Dominio de Los Sentidos (1996) and Atrapa-La (2000), a TV film.
They learnt the craft of comedy writing by working with Joaquín Oristrell, Spain’s major comedy writer of the 1990s.
The trio have collaborated on a number of films.