B

Back in 1968, Claude Berri made the semi-autobiographical “The Two of Us,” about a young Jewish boy who, pretending to be a Gentile, took refuge with a gruff, anti-Semitic farmer during World War II; and naturally the two bonded. Cao Hamburger’s “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation” puts a novel twist on that idea. In 1970 Brazil, when political dissidents are being targeted by a repressive regime, activists Daniel and Bia Stein (Eduardo Moreira and Simon Spaladore), knowing that their days may be numbered, go into hiding; but before they depart, they drop their son Mauro (Michel Joelsas) off to stay with his paternal grandfather Motel, who lives in the Jewish quarter of Sao Paolo. They’re unaware as they hurriedly do so that the old man, a barber, has just died. That leaves Mauro waiting outside the locked door of an empty apartment.

Fortunately the boy is taken in, though with a good deal of reluctance, by next-door neighbor Shlomo (Germano Haiut) under prodding from the local rabbi, and he’s cared for by the entire community, which considers him a new Moses even though his parents were in no way religious and he himself is ignorant of Judaism. The plot trajectory from this point is familiar: Mauro and Shlomo gradually bond, with the man endangering his own safety by contacting friends of the boy’s parents who are also under surveillance.

But there are other plot threads spinning off from this one. One involves local tomboy Hanna (Daniela Piepszyk), who becomes Mauro’s chum (and sells the neighbor kids access to peep-holes into her mother’s dress shop so they can watch women trying on the stock). Another centers on beautiful waitress Irene (Liliana Castro), on whom Mauro has a schoolboy crush and whose handsome soccer-goalie boyfriend becomes his sports model.

Football, in fact, provides throughout the film a counterpoint to the domestic drama. Mauro is a typical fan, spending every free moment, it seems, either playing in the streets or alone in “table soccer.” And since Brazil is contending in the World Cup series, the entire population convenes periodically around television sets to cheer their favorites on to victory. So we get a quietly ironic contrast between the country’s political division and its cultural unity.

The invitation to mawkishness in all this is obvious, but like Berri before him, Hamburger mostly resists it. He doesn’t play up the cloying aspects of the script, and keeps the performances subtle. Haiut is restrained in a part that could easily have been played too broadly, and Joelsas and Piepszyk are both genuine and charming rather than, as so often happens with child actors, phony and irritating. The rest of the cast come through with turns that are enjoyable as well; a montage that shows Mauro being fed by the elderly ladies of the temple features some fleeting turns that may flirt with stereotypes but are no less amusing for that. On the technical side the picture is pleasantly modest, with solid cinematography by Adriano Goldman that takes advantage of the unobtrusive period look created by art director Cassio Amarante. And Beto Villares provides a background score that’s also unobtrusive but effective.

To be sure, “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation” sugarcoats the historical context, downplaying the tragedy of the political reality in favor of a “Life Is Beautiful”-style message about the essential goodness of people and, to use the hackneyed phrase, the indomitableness of the human spirit. But unlike Benigni’s film, it does so gently, so that the effect is heartwarming rather than bloodcurdling. This is a “Year” worth spending with Mauro and his friends.