O Ano em Que Meus Pais Sairam de Férias
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (O Ano em Que Meus Pais Sairam de Férias) |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Cao Hamburger |
| Produced by | Fernando Meirelles, Cao Hamburger, Daniel Filho, others |
| Written by | Cao Hamburger, Claudio Galperin, Anna Muylaert, Bráulio Mantovani |
| Starring | Paulo Autran, Caio Blat, Simone Spoladore, Michel Joelsas, Daniela Piepszyk, Germano Haiut, Liliana Castro |
| Music by | Beto Villares |
| Cinematography | Adriano Goldman |
| Editing by | Fábio Rezende |
| Distributed by | Globo Filmes (Brazil), Buena Vista International (worldwide) |
| Release date(s) | November 2006 (Brazil) |
| Running time | 110 min |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Budget | USD 1,500,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
O Ano em Que Meus Pais Sairam de Férias (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, in Portuguese language) is a movie produced in 2006 by Globo Filmes, with script, direction and coproduction by Cao Hamburger, a Brazilian film, TV and animation director.
Contents |
[edit] The plotline
The story is set up entirely during a few weeks in 1970, in the city of São Paulo. Mauro, a 12-year old boy, is suddenly deprived of the company of his young parents, Miriam and Daniel Stein, who are political activists on the run from the harsh military government, which was strongly repressing leftists all over the country. Against this backdrop of fear and political persecution, the country is at the same time bursting with enthusiasm for the coming World Cup, to be held in Mexico, the first one to be transmitted live via satellite. The national team had great aces, such as Pelé, Jairzinho, Rivelino, Tostão and others, and was expected to win the championship for the third time (the others being 1958 in Sweden and 1962 in Chile).
Unable to take care of their only child, the Steins, who live in Belo Horizonte, drive all the way to São Paulo in a blue Volkswagen Beetle to deliver the boy to his paternal grandfather, Mótel, who is a barber. To their son, they say they will travel on vacation and promise to return for the World Cup games. Unfortunately, however, the grandfather dies in the same day the boy arrives, and he is left clueless and without support in Bom Retiro, a working-class neighbourhood with a strong Jewish community, many of them who still speak Yiddish, an unknown language for the kid. Since his father is Jewish, the close-knit Bom Retiro community rally for support for the boy and Shlomo, a solitary elder and religious Jew who was a close neighbour and friend of Mauro's grandfather, assumes the care and feeding of the boy.
Mauro is a football enthusiast and wants to be a goalkeeper. He gradually mixes in with the kids of the block and becomes acquainted with a number of colorful characters, including Hanna, a girl of his age; Ítalo, a politically-active student from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo; Irene, a beautiful female bartender and her boyfriend, the mulatto ace goalkeeper of one of the local football teams; the local rabbi and assorted Jewish elders, Italian immigrants, and so on. The script shows faithfully one of the interesting characteristics of working-class neighbourhoods in São Paulo, which were home to lower middle class families covering the whole gamut of ethnic, racial and national origins without conflict (the director himself is of Jewish and Italian mixed origins). The plot is accompanied by original black and white footage of the great games played by Brazil in the World Cup, with goals scored by Pelé and others.
To Mauro's great disappointment, his parent neither appear as promised at the World Cup nor give any notice. Fearing the worst, Shlomo starts to investigate by himself and is arrested by the political police because of his meddling. Finally, he achieves the liberation of Mauro's mother, who is severely ill after the prison term. Her reunion with her child happens in the very same day of Brazil's final victory at the World Cup. At the end of the film, she takes Mauro back to Belo Horizonte, and he says farewell to his recent friends and playmates. The father disappears in the clutches of the military juggernaut repressive apparatus, never to return.
[edit] Cast
- Paulo Autran as Mótel
- Caio Blat as Ítalo
- Liliana Castro as Irene
- Germano Haiut as Shlomo
- Michel Joelsas as Mauro
- Daniela Piepszyk as Hanna
- Simone Spoladore as Miriam
- Eduardo Moreira as Daniel
[edit] Critics
The film has been hailed by public and critics alike as one of the best films of 2006. The semi-autobiographical character of the film (the director's parents, a couple of physicists and professors of the University of São Paulo, were briefly arrested by the military in the same year of 1970, accused of lending support to "subversives". The couple's five children, including Cao Hamburger, the director, who was 8 at the time, came under the care of their grandmothers, one Jewish and another Italian Catholic), and the sensibility and technical virtuosity by which it is directed and shot, have been factors for the film's success.
A number of indications for awards is expected.
[edit] Trivia
- The film was actually shot in a neighbourhood in the city of Campinas, because the original Bom Retiro has changed too much since 1970
- It took 4 years to complete the film script and eight weeks to shoot it
- The main child actors are Jewish, and were selected from more than 1,000 prospects from Jewish schools of São Paulo
- Cao Hamburger, the director and main scriptwriter, never lived in Bom Retiro and had little contact with orthodox Jewish life. His parents lived in the borough of Pinheiros
