The Year My Parents Went on Vacation

Luckily, there’s complicated South American politics at the center of The Year My Parents Went on Vacation. Otherwise, we’d certainly be treated to a mawkish American remake of this film, which focuses on the unlikely relationship between an abandoned little boy and a cranky village elder.
It’s 1970 Brazil and the parents of 12-year-old Mauro (Michel Joelsas, a natural) are political dissidents, forced to leave their soccer-loving son behind with his grandfather. They’re in such a rush, they merely drop Mauro off at the front door, not knowing that Mauro’s grandfather died hours earlier. Enter the grandfather’s neighbor, Schlomo (Germano Haiut) a Jewish elder (Mauro’s father is Jewish, but Schlomo sees him as a “goy”) who reluctantly takes in the boy. Neither is particularly happy with the arrangement.
Of course, if this were an American film (Schlomo and Me?), we’d have 20 minutes of Mauro and Schlomo glaring at each other, followed by a touching bonding period (possibly a montage), ending in tears, hugs, and pronouncements of love. But director Cao Hamburger is much more restrained, rendering the tacit affection the man and child develop for each other all the more moving.
Mauro is stirred from his misery by a few things: The Brazilian soccer team, led by Pelé, blazing through the World Cup; his friendship with a free-spirited girl who lives in the apartment (her crush on Mauro is unrequited); and the crush he has, in equal parts, on a lovely young waitress at the local diner and her glamorous boyfriend who drives a motorcycle and plays goalie on a local squad.
The film blends Mauro’s heartbreak over his missing parents (he’s been instructed to tell everyone that they’re “on vacation”) with easy coming of age humor, and well-observed scenes about the power of sports to raise a nation’s spirits. (A group of radical students attempt to cheer on communist Czechoslovakia, but find themselves inexorably screaming in delight when Brazil wins.)
Oh, and if you need further proof that they don’t make ‘em like this in America? The imdb.com suggested corollary to this film? Home Alone.