The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Unrated) **½ | Warm story of a boy forced into uncertain life

BY MARTA BARBER

mbarber@MiamiHerald.com

This review previously was published in January during the Miami Jewish Film Festival.

The year is 1970 and Brazilians are getting ready for the World Cup, being played in June in Mexico. Discussions about the team take place more often, or at least more vocally, than talk about politics, especially for a country under a military dictatorship. Any kind of dissidence is sure cause for arrest, and death is not uncommon among those taken by force by the police.

Daniel, his wife, and son Mauro, leave Belo Horizonte, the third largest city in Brazil, in their blue Volkswagen Beetle for Sao Paulo, farther south, to leave their son with his grandfather. ''Just tell anyone who asks we're on vacation,'' Daniel says to Mauro, but the parents' anxious demeanors -- they're always looking around fearfully -- and sad faces belie the calming words. ''When will you come back?'' asks Mauro. ''I'll be back for the World Cup,'' Daniel promises his son.

Cao Hamburger delivers a warm film about a young boy who has to adapt to a new and uncertain life in an instable time. The story of a young boy connecting with an older man, possibly of a different faith, has been explored extensively in Jewish-themed films: The Two of Us, the 1967 Claude Berri film with Michel Simon about a Jewish boy sent to a farm outside Paris during World War II; 2003's Monsieur Ibrahim, with Omar Sharif playing a Muslim storekeeper who befriends a Jewish boy; and 2004's Lost Embrace by Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman. Vacation resembles the Burman film, at least when it tries to capture the lifestyle of a blue-collar neighborhood where immigrants make their home.

Mauro is sent to live with his grandfather but unfortunately arrives the day of the man's funeral. The grandfather's next-door neighbor begrudgingly asks him in and is shocked to find out Mauro has not been circumcised. When he complains, his rabbi tells him Mauro may be a gift from God. Soon Mauro befriends the Italians, Greeks, Jews and African descendants who live in the ethnically diverse and happy neighborhood. The excitement peaks the week the World Cup begins, when the dictatorship acts brutally, but Brazil is looking for its goals elsewhere.

There's the dichotomy for Mauro: Can the sport for which he feels passionate be enough to get him through the pain of his parents' absence? Mauro's character is underwritten, but Michel Joelsas delivers a believable, pained lad capable of still being a child.

One true gem is Daniela Piepszyk, Mauro's teen neighbor, who is a fireball and the leader of the neighborhood gang of boys. You can't take your eyes off her.

Cast: Michel Joelsas, Germano Haiut, Caio Blat, Daniela Piepszyk

Director: Cao Hamburger

Screenwriters: Adriana Falcao, Claudio Galperin, Cao Hamburger

Producers: Caio Gullane, Cao Hamburger

In Portuguese and Yiddish with English subtitles. Running time: 104 minutes. No offensive material. Playing at: In Miami-Dade: South Beach, Intracoastal; in Broward: Sunrise, Deerfield; in Palm Beach: Shadowood, Mizner, Delray, Lake Worth.