El Cinco
- long
- 100'
- English subtitles
Patón is 35 years old and a professional footballer in the C division. After a foul he is suspended for eight matches. Can his career survive not shining on the pitch for three months? El Cinco is a bittersweet drama about the frustration of letting opportunities slip through your fingers.
Director Adrián Biniez takes you into the arena of the game, the tension on the pitch. The role of captain fits Patón like a glove out there, but it’s a role he won’t be playing for a while. Biniez doesn’t focus on the ball, but on the inner conflict of his protagonist: the battle between his pride and a new future. Because while he’s sidelined, it slowly dawns on Patón that he is destined for neither fame nor riches. With the help of his wife Ale, he tries to imagine a new life.
Biniez based his second feature film partly on his own experiences. When he debuted with Gigante in 2009, one of his friends, a professional footballer, played his last matches. While the director was entering a new world, his peer had to say farewell to the lifestyle he had known since his youth. That’s what El Cinco is about: how do you deal with the end of a world, with its routines, codes and rituals?
Open a dry cleaner’s? A delivery service or a lingerie store? With no capital, Patón realises that he will have to invest in himself. But Biniez also shows that this is the first time Patón actually chooses himself, and adulthood. The tension on the football pitch is mirrored when Patón goes back to school: wrestling with his math test, and having to ask for help to build up something new. What makes El Cinco captivating, is that it not only shows Patón’s attempts to reinvent himself, but also his agitation and aggression.
Nienke Huitenga
Translation: Marjan Westbroek