RSVP : Kids Have All the Fun

“He’s a professional charmer,” said Bernardo Bertolucci, smiling down at 9-year-old Raju Lal, resplendent in his jeans, denim jacket and cowboy boots.

Asked how he liked “Little Buddha,” the little actor had just flashed a high sign, grinned and enthused “Fantastic!”

Raju, who plays one of the young candidates for Lama Dorje in Bertolucci’s new movie, was the scene-stealer at the reception Monday following the screening of the Miramax release at the Avco Cinema in Westwood.

Bounding up the stairs to the balcony level of the Armand Hammer Museum, Raju and the equally exuberant Alex Wiesendanger, 11, who stars as the possible reincarnation of the Tibetan lama, brought some much-needed vitality to the low-key party.

Keanu Reeves, who portrays Prince Siddhartha/Buddha, was a no-show. And although there were some star faces--including Dennis Hopper, George Hamilton and Carrie Fisher--at the screening, the crowd that drifted across the road to the museum to check out the eats seemed mainly the usual lean and hungry-to-be-with-it Hollywood backdrop group, dressed in their best-of-Barneys shades of beige, sand and black.

The film may glorify the beauty of burgundy and gold, the primary colors of the Bhutan monastery where much of the film is set, but Hollywood’s sense of aesthetic is much more sober.

“Making this film was a great voyage,” said producer Jeremy Thomas, clutching a folded Tibetan flag and a kata, the traditional shawl of blessing, which had been given to him by a lama who was pleased by the film’s focus on Tibetan culture.

European-style kissing on both cheeks generated some warmth at the party but, with the balcony open to the cold air and the food just minimal hors d’oeuvres, no one was going to stick around for long once the basic pleasantries were exchanged.

“We’re going to a Chinese restaurant,” Alex said. The young star, nattily dressed in a New Yorker-style blue blazer and crimson tie, interrupted his wrestling and teasing with Raju for a moment to politely ask Bertolucci what film the Italian director was going to work on next.

Told that it would be another co-production with Thomas, who also collaborated with Bertolucci on the Oscar-winning “The Last Emperor,” Alex exclaimed: “Jeez, these people never stop. They’re like the Energizer bunny, they keep going and going and going!”

Then he and Lal bounded away again, personifying excitement in a crowd that was playing it cool.