The Platform, personal film review Skip or Stream? Stream!! 8.5/10 This film’s premiere on Netflix perfectly coincides with the time it’s more relevant— these months going on with the pandemic. Prescript— It’s 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 Aronofsky’s Mother! when it comes to story telling, it goes beyond imagination to get the message across). Only this time, it’s satirized. It’s about the separation of classes, the rampant inequality of our modern life. Through its metaphors, the film introduces the floors as people’s 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 they’re only left with is each other and hunger, which ultimately leads to violence. What’s 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 though— 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 succeeded— it didn’t really show what actually happened. I think ultimately because in reality, we aren’t there yet. They didn’t show how because there was nothing to show. But what I got about the child being the message was because, people (even the admins) didn’t 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 wasn’t shown in the ending, because that’s what we’re supposed to really solve. The film embodies the current class differences and if there was a solution to this, we would’ve figured it out already. But there’s not (hence not shown). And up to date, we’re still jammed (with the pandemic coming into picture, the hoarding, the VIP testings— 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 wasn’t a closing with meaning, it was blank “how” we needed to answer ourselves. Deep diving to the story— you can skip this if you’re not in for SPOILERS. The protagonist, Goreng volunteered to be imprisoned inside a vertical tower with 333 floors (it’s not easy to imagine since it’s architecturally impossible in the real world), where the only source of food is coming from a platform— 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 prisoners— 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 point— 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 month— who knows, you could be the ones stepping on freshly baked cakes— worst is if you belong to 100+ floors down, where there’s absolutely no food left. So with each floor having 2 inmates and nothing to eat, what do we make of that? It’s a complete transparency of the current situation (I’d say in our country but it’s all over the world ESP today)— 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 it’s 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 doesn’t seem like it. And that’s only because people at the top couldn’t 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 they’d help him and instead, shits on his face when he tries to climb. Realizing they don’t have a chance at the people above, Goreng and Baharat decided they could work together into Goreng’s 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 survival’s sake. This stains their innocence and leads them to kill other tenants off for survival as well. There’s this one character— 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. It’s unclear how and why the child is down there esp when one of the tenants specifically said they weren’t letting 16 years old and under in the facility. It seems that the mother’s repeated descent on the platform wasn’t 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 is— she’s the message that there doesn’t 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 possible— both the fact that there’s a child in a facility and that her being there without violence to survive, that’s why she was the right message?) like in real life? She was the symbol that we don’t all have to be like this to each other to survive, I wasn’t sure if they were talking about hope but I think (and hope) so? And it was also then I realized, it’s on us to understand and figure out how to get her? How to get “the message” across and change the system? Hence, why it was open ended and what happened wasn’t shown at the end, because there was no really knowing what happened to something that isn’t happening yet— irl. It was the shoe’s way of shoeing its audience that hey, this is possible if only we all cooperate. There doesn’t 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 haven’t gotten there yet, and that’s for us to figure out. Also my take on the mother was pretty much how I see it in Mother! movie— she was really mother earth preserving hope. And with people’s greed and selfishness, she was eventually murdered brutally. And in our case, she is being treated that way now, sadly. We’re 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 reason— no matter what that meant. If this isn’t the greatest interpretation of how the world works, I don’t know what is.