Interview: Cao Hamburger (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation)

Religion and sports. Opium for the masses? Not quite. Through the movie The Year My Parents Went On
Vacation, Brazilian director Cao Hamburger takes us to 1970, a year in which religion and soccer played a mayor role in the life of a 12 year old kid, Mauro. Against the backdrop of the political turmoil of an escalating dictatorship that throw many Brazilians into exile. Mauro’s parents are forced to go ‘on vacation’for political reasons, leaving their son with his jew grandfather in a Jewish neighborhood in Sao Paolo. Fate enters the story killing grandpa even before Mauro meets him so this sweet and smart boy that dreams with being a soccer goalie is forced to create a new family for himself in a a neighborhood whose customs and religions beliefs are foreign to him. But soccer is the opening key that unites everybody under the 1970 World Cup, that Brazilians won on that same year, and so that championship serves also as the canvas in which a tender and at times painful story develops, picturing an interesting metaphor of lives of Brazilians at that given moment in time.

Hamburger himself grew into adulthood through the seventies so the movie could also be read as a lightly perception of his own memories. He also wanted to be a golie in a country where soccer is almost religion and that spirit is also reflected in his first feature film. This filmmaker, whose movie arrives backed up by some of the major film awards of his native country, didn’t grow up in a religious enviroment at all, although his family roots are jewish. We talked about his past and present and about his ‘feel good movie’ on a recent snowy afternoon in New York:

Cao Hamburger

Marx said religion is the opium of the people. Is that true for soccer and Brazilians?
I don’t agree with Karl Marx at all. They used to say at the time that soccer was the opium of the people. And I don’t agree with that either! Even if lots of people said that during that time the dictatorship used soccer to hide what was really happening in the country I can’t agree. It’s possible but I don’t think that you can hide a dictatorship behind one World Cup. I just have good memories about that particular Brazilian national team (with Pelé among others). Those memories and the memories of the dictatorship are completely separated in my mind.

Why was important to mix politics and soccer in this movie?
These two extremes could be considered metaphors for our lives. Sometimes the sky is gray but in the middle of a gray day the sun shines. This is our life, we always have dark periods but you can always find something that makes you feel happy. Politics and soccer in the movie play in that way.

Why did you decide to set up the story in a Jewish neighborhood?
One reason was to give me an excuse to explore my own roots, I wanted to know more about my personal background. We could tell the same story within the Japanese comunity but the Jewish community works really well in the movie because the Jewish community is in a way a metaphor of what happen to the kid: having to leave their own country, trying to adapt to a different one…

But what was the original idea that brought you to write this film?
For a while I wanted to talk about bar mitzvahs, an important transition into adulthood. It’s a very strong and a very important part of Jewish life, maybe the most important one. I had been thinking of making a film about it. I was living in London at the time, and I felt like an alien, living in a different country, and I got to think about the differences between British culture and mine, my childhood, and my roots. This film was a personal way of revisiting all this. This is how everything started.

Is your family very religious?
My grandfather is the same as many of the characters in the movie. He’s from a German-Jewish family and my mother is Catholic. Both my parents are scientists, actually and they don’t believe in God but we have a strong sense of Jewish and Catholic culture, ethics and history. For the movie I used a lot of personal accounts and photos and film footage from the families who used to live in the Bom Retiro district of Sao Paulo. Most of the extras are from there.

How difficult was to find the right kid for the movie?
The casting was really difficult. We auditioned more than 1000 boys and actually we changed the character when we found Michael Joelsas. He wasn’t so beautiful, and his friend, the girl, was originally much older, almost like a woman. But when I found both kids I decided to change the story a bit for them. Michael had never acted in a film before and we could see that he had two traits which went so well: intelligence and a sense of observation. And he had strong charisma. He’s also got a certain shiness and an inner strength.

Since City of God became such a huge hit, is it easier for filmmakers from Brazil?
I think so. Everytime we had a film released outside Brazil which becomes sucessful, our industry improves. Since Central Station and City of God, things are getting a lot better.

Why did you choose to be a filmmaker?
I had no choice. I tried to be a musician but I wasn’t any good.

What did you play?
The guitar. I had a band, we played MPB (Brazilian popular music), rock and reggae. But I found that cinema is a great way to touch people.

What are you working on now?
I am working on a film produced by Fernando Meirelles. I am working on another film with Daniela Peipszyk (Hannah). And I am writing the second season of the HBO series, called Sons of Carnaval, and will be shooting it shortly.

City Lights Pictures Releasing releases the film in theaters today.