The Platform, personal film review Skip or Stream? Stream!! 8.5/10 This filmâs premiere on Netflix perfectly coincides with the time itâs more relevantâ these months going on with the pandemic. Prescriptâ Itâs not some film you can watch with snacks on. At least I lost my appetite. The Platform is a sci-fi/thriller concept/metaphor film (like parasite but as open as Darren Aronofskyâs Mother! when it comes to story telling, it goes beyond imagination to get the message across). Only this time, itâs satirized. Itâs about the separation of classes, the rampant inequality of our modern life. Through its metaphors, the film introduces the floors as peopleâs classes. A tray of food is provided for all but it comes from the top, all the way down where of course, the masses at the late bottom of the building has no more food left because people on the upper floors consumed every bit of it. What theyâre only left with is each other and hunger, which ultimately leads to violence. Whatâs interesting here is how the film tells us that there is more than enough food (say money, land, rights) to go around down to the lower floors, but overconsumption easily rules people when they know everything has a deadline (monthly switching of random floors). The pace was not as speedy as Uncut Gems but it took all the time it needed to get the feelings right in your skin. I just panted a bit on the change of mood it brought me thoughâ humor, disgust, terror, relief (sometimes?), and back to terror, and most especially, hopelessness. The finale was left open. Even when it was conclusive that they somehow succeededâ it didnât really show what actually happened. I think ultimately because in reality, we arenât there yet. They didnât show how because there was nothing to show. But what I got about the child being the message was because, people (even the admins) didnât believe there could possibly be a 16 y.o. below anywhere in the platform - esp someone that was alive and well-fed in the bottom most floor. That it was even possible for that kid to be alive (and innocent and uncorrupt) amidst all the chaos and everybody believing they need violence to survive. And what they did with the child wasnât shown in the ending, because thatâs what weâre supposed to really solve. The film embodies the current class differences and if there was a solution to this, we wouldâve figured it out already. But thereâs not (hence not shown). And up to date, weâre still jammed (with the pandemic coming into picture, the hoarding, the VIP testingsâ this is apropos now more than ever). The ending was put there not for us to understand or interpret, but so WE could actually think of a solution, so we could search for that little girl in this cruel society, and only then we would be able to satisfy the closing of the film. It wasnât a closing with meaning, it was blank âhowâ we needed to answer ourselves.âšDeep diving to the storyâ you can skip this if youâre not in for SPOILERS. The protagonist, Goreng volunteered to be imprisoned inside a vertical tower with 333 floors (itâs not easy to imagine since itâs architecturally impossible in the real world), where the only source of food is coming from a platformâ some sort of block of cement coming from floor 0 down to floor 333 (funny how x2 per pax is 666). The platform is packed with delicious cuisine (which were specifically favorites of the people who came/brought in as prisonersâ yes, I said came in because there were actually volunteers that wanted in so they could get something in return, like a diploma). Once a day it lowers through the layers of the tower allowing the inmates of each floor (2 pax each level) to get their fill. You get the pointâ those at the top get to stuff their cheeks with as much food as they can, and those at the bottom left with shattered glasses and empty bowls and plates. But the interesting thing here is, every month, the inmates are drugged and taken to a new floor, randomly picked. First month you could be starving at the bottom, and the next monthâ who knows, you could be the ones stepping on freshly baked cakesâ worst is if you belong to 100+ floors down, where thereâs absolutely no food left. So with each floor having 2 inmates and nothing to eat, what do we make of that? Itâs a complete transparency of the current situation (Iâd say in our country but itâs all over the world ESP today)â those at the top has nothing to worry about, while the bottom tenants eat each other alive. And the fact that everything has a deadline forcing each individual to take as much as they can, while itâs there. Sounds familiar? (Toilet paper, masks, alcohol, ring any bells?) Eventually, Goreng, being an idealist, wanted to destroy the way the system works by giving everyone only the part of the food they need. It was revealed by one of his floormates that the food was actually enough for all floors even when it doesnât seem like it. And thatâs only because people at the top couldnât stop their greed about consuming so much more than they need, leaving people below starving and violent. Baharat, his floormate is also an idealist and wanted to climb to top most floor by asking the tenants above them to grab his rope. It gets complicated when they even started asking him a lot of things including who his God is (religion conflicts) and said theyâd help him and instead, shits on his face when he tries to climb. Realizing they donât have a chance at the people above, Goreng and Baharat decided they could work together into Gorengâs original goal, feeding everyone fairly by getting into the platform (with very good intentions) as it descends each floor. They were also planning to go up with it to send a message, like a rebellion as it ascends every after it reaches all the floors. This starts off okay but ultimately becomes gore when they start to see floors where people have already engaged in murder and cannibalism for survivalâs sake. This stains their innocence and leads them to kill other tenants off for survival as well. Thereâs this one characterâ mother, who was seemingly looking for her lost boy by going down the platform every once in a while, but dies in the latter part of the film. The child however, who turns out to be a girl btw, meets Goreng in the end, at the 333rd floor. Itâs unclear how and why the child is down there esp when one of the tenants specifically said they werenât letting 16 years old and under in the facility. It seems that the motherâs repeated descent on the platform wasnât an attempt to find her child, but to ensure the food reached the bottom floor to feed and protect her child by keeping her there. When they realized she was the one they should send up as a clear message (not sure about this but I think isâ sheâs the message that there doesnât have to be violence? Because she was pure? Unharmed, innocent, and even healthy, despite being at the last floor. And something that nobody believes is possibleâ both the fact that thereâs a child in a facility and that her being there without violence to survive, thatâs why she was the right message?) like in real life? She was the symbol that we donât all have to be like this to each other to survive, I wasnât sure if they were talking about hope but I think (and hope) so? And it was also then I realized, itâs on us to understand and figure out how to get her? How to get âthe messageâ across and change the system? Hence, why it was open ended and what happened wasnât shown at the end, because there was no really knowing what happened to something that isnât happening yetâ irl. It was the shoeâs way of shoeing its audience that hey, this is possible if only we all cooperate. There doesnât have to be violence and dead bodies, if we learn to give we can beat the system. And not showing how the system took her in the end is a hint that we havenât gotten there yet, and thatâs for us to figure out. Also my take on the mother was pretty much how I see it in Mother! movieâ she was really mother earth preserving hope. And with peopleâs greed and selfishness, she was eventually murdered brutally. And in our case, she is being treated that way now, sadly. Weâre all almost like Goreng, who finds out how the system works and tries to fight it but is being hopelessly corrupted in the process. Those at the top never even consider giving up excesses and just know how to take and take as much, and the bottom masses are too busy surviving to even consider reasonâ no matter what that meant. If this isnât the greatest interpretation of how the world works, I donât know what is.
