1970's...

Mauro or Moishale? was the title that I intended to put for this blog post @ the first place. Probably my spelling may not have turned correct...I just googled it and found that I'm not getting there right...Anyways I am not concerned about the spelling here and let's get into it....

Yet another movie that I watched this weekend and slated as 'worth watching'. It's a brazilian movie and I did not know that until I saw the title flashing on my laptop from the netflix queue picks. And I was surprised that I picked a movie by chance which has been nominated for Oscars and won 4 academy awards. Seeing the title, I thought it's an English movie which I've not heard before. This revolves around 1970's, jews, world cup football, Pele, politics, communism and the main character Mauro, a 12 year old boy who is left in a jewish neighbourhood when his parents went on vacation. The real meaning of vacation comes later. After seeing movies that takes a small boy/girl as the main character, I am quite impressed that how a 12 year old can act so vividly. Few other shows/movies to quote on this genre - Taare Zammen Par which featured Darsheel Safari, David Copperfield which featured Daniel Radcliffe, Anjali that featured Shamili...and now this gets added to the list.

Mauro is a soccer fanatic and the movie starts where he plays the desk soccer game @ home. He was left alone when his parents went on vacation. Then, he gets a chance to meet different people and make new friends around. Brazil's 1970 world cup win and the way people watched it in dining places, listened to the scores in the transistor, jiggled and giggled around...even those kids ran around and watched it with great interest, clapped their hands and did high fives - It reminded me of the World cup cricket matches which I used to watch and shout at times showing different emotions.

And what I felt about the different characters in this movie 'The Year my parents went on vacation'?

Mauro - One who stole the whole movie...He's the essence of the movie
Hannah - Cute and clever. Clever when opening windows for those kids to see girls changing dresses in her mom's garment shop and get money from those kids for allowing them to see it as a bribe :)
Shloma - The jewish thatha in the nearby door, very religious...
Irene - Very beautiful

Rest of the characters did their part quiet well but I have nothing to write about them. I dont want to reveal the entire storyline here and leave it to everyone to watch it when a chance strikes :)
My rating: 4.8/5 especially for Mauro's performance.