In my review of Sing, I mentioned that it’s the last
movie of 2016 I had been meaning to watch.
That’s not entirely true. I
actually wanted to watch Patintero: Ang
Alamat ni Meng Patalo last year as soon as I saw its trailer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t shown to any
theaters near me last year. And since
Filipino indie films rarely get the chance of becoming available through, er,
“alternative Internet sources”, I kind of became resigned to the idea that I
would never get to see it. But, to my
delight, I unexpectedly found it in the Internet recently. So, now, here’s my review (sheesh, a review
for a 2016 movie this late into 2017)…
Patintero: Ang Alamat ni Meng Patalo is about a young girl named
Meng who, like most kids in her school and neighborhood, is obsessed with patintero. Unfortunately, she
doesn’t have much success with the game, earning her the moniker “patalo”
(loser). When a Buwan ng Wika patintero
tournament is organized, Meng recruits her academics-focused bestfriend Nicay,
the lollipop-loving new kid Shifty, and wannabe superhero Z-Boy to make a team
and compete. Though they ironically
named their quirky team “Mga Patalo” (The Losers), they intend to shed off
their “patalo” reputation by winning the tournament. While this is going on, Meng also has to deal
with the developing riff between her and her older brother, Manuel, who used to
be her patintero playmate before he went to high school.
Patintero has the disposition of an
anime. If you watch anime, then you are
aware that it depicts a featured interest or sport as more action-packed and
popular than it normally is in real-life, exaggerating to the point of
entertaining absurdity. Well, in the
same way, this movie paints a world – specifically, the community of San Jose –
where the game of patintero is a huge deal.
Players treat it seriously, huge bets are made, and matches play out in
a colorful, over-the-top, aggressive manner.
As a result of this utter silliness, the movie is extremely charming.
It’s also
nostalgic. Early in the film – through
the appearance of a two-peso coin – it’s strongly implied that it’s set in the
90’s. I guess it’s an attempt to make
the detail of patintero-playing neighborhood kids more realistic by taking
away the existence of gadgets. In fact, Patintero is probably intended for an
audience that grew up in the 90’s – like me – rather than present-day children. Hence, 80’s and 90’s kids are probably the
ones who will get a kick out of this movie.
It celebrates the kind of the childhood we had, as it reflects sentiments and elements very familiar to us.
This appears
to be more of the case when you consider that the movie doesn’t sugarcoat. It doesn’t shy away from the delivery of
moderately crude language and tackles themes like death, family discord, being
torn between family and friends, and cheating. This movie is not primarily for children, though they can also watch it and find it enjoyable.
It also gets
surprisingly thoughtful at times. For
example (SPOILERS), one detail about Meng’s character is that she is constantly
trying to learn how to “fly” – probably to help her up her patintero game (or
is it to get to her OFW mother?). An
advice that her grandmother gave her at some point is that she won’t be able to
fly if there are many things weighing her down.
Then, in the final match, in which Meng bets that she will no longer play
patintero if she loses, she accomplishes “flying.” But only when she doesn’t
care anymore of what’s the result of the match would be, of the possibility of
not playing the game forever, as long as she plays her heart out in that
moment. That’s nicely effective writing
right there.
In the end, Patintero is not perfect. It’s a tad self-indulgent at times, and the
script isn’t exactly tight and thoroughly clever. In fact, there’s some sloppiness with it. It has geeky charm, but it doesn’t match the
delightful levels that Saving Sally
has. It’s not the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World-of-the-Philippines that I was hoping it
would be. It admirably shows some ambition,
but it doesn’t have the budget and production knowhow to back it up.
Nonetheless, it
has a fresh concept for a Filipino film, and executes it generally well. The child performances are pretty good. It’s generally funny. The aspects of nostalgia and whimsy totally
work. And it has a “komiks” feel –
visually and tonally – going wonderfully for it, and the narrative is amply competent to do something of quality out of this.
Thus, all in
all, I think Patintero: Ang Alamat ni
Meng Patalo has the entertainment value to adequately please a tasteful Filipino
moviegoer.
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