Review - The Platform
The Platform
The platform is a Spanish Thriller Netflix Film. The movie opens to us in a kitchen. Showing delicately displayed food being prepared. Immediately the film gives us the statement: “There are three types of people, those at the top, those at the bottom, and those who fall.” Immediately my brain bounced to a sort of class system, which later we hear them refer to the hole as a vertical self-management system. The hole(similar to what we would identify as an elevator shaft) is filled with people who have both voluntarily interviewed to be put in it in return for a degree along with criminals who are serving for their sentence.
Prisoners spend 30 days on a random level and then are gassed and moved along with their roommate-if they still are both alive. The food travels on one singular table traveling from the highest level first down to the lowest level. No one knows how many levels there are, not many of them seem to wonder beyond their own floor or which floor they will end up on next. Each room is given a certain amount of time to feed until they are satisfied. Through this act of open-will we see greed and selfishness be the prisoners first response. Eat or be eaten.
Our story focuses around the relations of our main character, Goreng, and his cellmates. Along the way we meet an older gentleman turned cannibal to survive, a middle-aged woman who was already dying of cancer and part of the system herself, a woman killing her way down the hold to look for her child, and a man attempting to go up thinking that was his salvation. Ultimately we see all different kinds of people’s behaviors and justifications for why they are they way they are. Goreng begins off positive and looking to gain information from his cell-mates. As our story moves along we slowly see his outlook and ideals change. We see the flight or flight response that is in each of us at our core if we ever reached levels of desperation.
After deciding that the way to survive would be to break the system, Goreng and his last cellmate decide that going up isn’t the answer. The answer is to go down, portion the food, and then follow the table back up with a symbol to show the administration. At first they identify this symbol as an untouched dish. On their venture down the hole they find there are many more floors than they anticipated. They are also in for one other surprise, a child. Specifically the child of another prisoner that they deemed crazy. After much deliberation, they then see the child as their symbol to be sent up to The Administration. The child symbolizes innocence, strength, and resilience.
Overall, I would recommend this movie. It was very relatable in a sense with all of the current events unfolding around us in the world. It shows us that if we could practice self-control and compassion, all of us would come out stronger on the other end. If that isn’t enough, the cannibalism, killing, blood, and guts should do it for you.
Often enough I see it come across my feed that if I had to pick one one item to bring with me on a desert island, what would it be? Throughout this movie we see examples: a book, dog, rope, knife…what would you bring into the hole if you could only bring one thing?!
