What Did I Just Watch? The Platform (2019) Analysis

Synopsis

Prisoners housed in vertical cells watch as inmates in the upper cells are fed while those below starve.

Initial release: February 21, 2020

(Taiwan)Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Language: Spanish

Nominations: Goya Award for Best New Director

Awards: Goya Award for Best Special Effects, Gaudí Award for Best Visual Effects

My Review/ Analysis

Wow. There is a lot to this film. Overall, this film is making lots of statements on society and humanity. In the film, prisoners are kept in a cell like blocks with a roommate for an extended amount of time. Every day a platform full of food travels down the platforms from top to bottom. The more food the top levels eat, the less food there is for the lower levels.

The film is making jabs and comments on the society of the real-world, however; the filmmakers created a society all of its own within the pit itself. There is a set of rules to follow within the society of the pit. For example, each level has two minutes to eat as much food as they want before the platform will move to another level. If any food is kept on your platform and being saved for later, the people in charge will either freeze you to death or heat you to death until you return the food to where it belongs. Despite these strict rules, the citizens of the pit are free to do as they choose. There seems to be no repercussions for murder, or psychically harming another person within the pit.

There are 333 platforms in the pit, and with two people per level that equals 666 lives living within this hellish society. This is symbolic of the hellish society humans have created in the real world. The people in the film are very individualistic minded and are very little for one another. If everybody ate only what they needed, everyone would have enough. But the people in the pit seem to have very little regard for one another.

Despite those at the top platforms, having experiences life at the bottom, they still hoard food and hold no regard for those below them. Even though the members of the pit physically get to experience life at every level they still posses strong selfish actions when at the top.

Immediately this made me think of the recent Pandemic the world is facing. People hoard food and toilet paper, leaving very little for others. It was a scary parallel realization. The film is stating that as a society we only look out for ourselves, and the majority rarely consider how those around us are doing. While we don’t live in a pit like society, the film suggests no matter who is put in the pit the same pattern will occur over and over again. Those at the top will always take too much and cause pain and suffering for those below them.

Towards the end of the film the audience meets a little girl who is hiding in one of the lower platforms. She appears to be the daughter of the woman who rides down the platform every month looking for her child. The audience is told that they accept no kids to take part in the pit, causing the audience to believe the child was born within the pit. Therefore, making her a direct product of the pits society.

At the end of the film, the child is sent back up on the platform to serve as a message to those in charge of the pit. This suggests that the only hope for a change in society lies within the younger generations of the world. However, the girl in the movie has to go on this journey alone since she solely is the message. The girl represents the hope of humanity to overcome the darkest truths of human nature. The only hope for change is through youthful eyes and innocence.

My Rating

3.5 out of 5

I highly reccomend giving this film a watch. However, I don’t think I would ever sit down to watch it again.

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