Ended on 4/10/2008
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THE YEAR MY PARENTS WENT ON VACATION -
(unrated)
2006 - Brazil - Portuguese / Yiddish / German (with English subtitles) - 105 minutes - City Lights
Directed by: Cao Hamburger
Featuring: Paulo Autran, Michel Joelsas, Germano Haiut, Simone Spoladore, Eduardo Moreira
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showtimes and tickets
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 "This 1970-set tale of a 12-year-old shaped by three driving forces—his country’s brutal dictatorship, his left-wing parents’ disappearance and a nation’s obsession with the World Cup—pulls you into a well-observed world and its characters. The writer-director Cao Hamburger uses soccer as a natural through-line to one ardent young fan’s coming-of-age story.
The film begins with a scene that feels just right, chaotic but not melodramatic. The boy is Mauro, played by Michel Joelsas. His mother waits for his chronically late father to arrive home, so that the parents can pile into their VW with a suspicious number of belongings. They drop Mauro at the curb of his grandfather’s house. “Don’t forget, we’re on vacation,” Mauro’s father says to Mauro. They promise to return in time to enjoy the World Cup together.
The story’s one narrative whopper arrives early: Mauro’s grandfather, it turns out, has just died. There is no one to meet the boy. The deceased grandfather’s neighbor is a stoic, isolated Orthodox Jew (played by Germano Haiut) who wonders, who is this apparent goy (Mauro’s half-Jewish, we learn) wandering the dark halls of the Sao Paulo apartment complex, kicking his soccer ball against the walls? Thus begins a rickety, makeshift relationship between reluctant guardian and a boy whose parents have suddenly, in fear of their dissident lives, gone on vacation."
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
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