THE PLATFORM (2019 - Spanish)

Studio:      Netflix
Director:    Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Writer:      David Desola, Pedro Rivero
Producer:  Carlos Juarez
Stars:     Ivan Massague, Antonia San Juan, Zorian Eguileor, Emilio Buale, Alexandra Masangkay, Zihara Llana

Review Score:

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Summary:

In a dystopian prison, a platform of communal food descends daily through dozens of floors, forcing paired cellmates to selfishly survive at the expense of anyone further down.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In a dystopian future, The Administration governs a Vertical Self-Management Center housing voluntary and involuntary prisoners. Cellmates are paired with one other person on each successively numbered floor, which are simple concrete squares with a large hole in the center. Beginning in the lavish kitchen on floor zero, a bountiful banquet of food descends daily on a platform that stops for two minutes at each floor, forcing people further down to eat leftovers from the people above, if any food remains at all. Prisoners are allowed to enter the VSC with just one personal item, cannot save food under penalty of an extreme temperature change, and are reassigned to a different level at the start of each month.

With the public unaware of exactly how the VSC operates, Goreng applies for admission to ‘The Pit’ on the promise of receiving a diploma if he serves six months to quit smoking. Goreng is accepted and chooses a copy of Don Quixote as his personal item.

Goreng wakes on level 48 to discover his cellmate is Trimagasi, an elderly man serving a 12-month sentence for throwing his TV out a window in frustration and accidentally killing an illegal immigrant passing by on a bicycle. Trimagasi reveals his personal item is a self-sharpening Samurai-Plus knife he bought from the infomercial that made him angry. Trimagasi explains the VSC’s class system as he and Goreng scrounge for food and become friends over the course of their first month together.

Trimagasi recounts previous months living on levels 72, 26, 78, 43, 11, 79, 32, 8, and 132. Goreng questions if Trimagasi became a murderous cannibal when he realizes food doesn’t make it as low as 132 and wonders what happened to the cell partner Goreng replaced. Trimagasi admits he ate human flesh, but claims he did not kill anyone as he and his previous cellmate ate a suicide victim. Trimagasi adds that his partner left the VSC after completing his term.

Someone from a higher cell seemingly commits suicide by jumping down the hole. A catatonic woman named Miharu later descends on the food platform. Trimagasi explains that Miharu comes down every month searching for her lost little boy. Trimagasi suggests the suicide victim may have been Miharu’s cellmate, as she supposedly murders them to create a vacancy in hopes of being paired with her child the next month.

The two men on level 49 attempt to rape Miharu when the platform descends. Miharu savagely slaughters both men.

Gas puts the prisoners to sleep when the month changes. Goreng wakes on level 171 to find himself tied to his cot. Trimagasi explains that because it is his second-to-last month and they have to resort to cannibalism this far down, he plans to cut up Goreng and eat him before Goreng could do the same to him.

After several days, Trimagasi starts slicing into Goreng’s leg. Miharu unexpectedly descends on the food platform and slits Trimagasi’s throat. Miharu gives the knife to Goreng, who finishes killing his cellmate. Miharu eats flesh from Trimagasi and feeds it to Goreng too. Miharu continues her descent.

Goreng continues eating Trimagasi’s corpse even though it rots over the next few weeks. Goreng hallucinates Trimagasi talking to him and also fantasizes about being intimate with Miharu.

The next month, Goreng wakes on level 33 with his new cellmate Imoguiri, who was the administrator that processed Goreng’s application. Having brought her dog, Imoguiri claims she did not know how bad conditions were in the VSC. Imoguiri defends The Administration by saying the VSC was intended to foster a spontaneous sense of solidarity among the communal captives.

Goreng tells Imoguiri about Miharu’s little boy. Imoguiri questions the existence of a child by revealing no one under 16 is allowed in the VSC.

Insisting the platform contains enough food for everyone if they only took what they needed, Imoguiri rations plates for the cellmates below and peacefully pleads with them to do the same for subsequent floors. Each day, the lower levels refuse to listen to Imoguiri’s reasoning. Goreng finally threatens to defecate in the food if they do not comply, which compels lower levels to cooperate.

Miharu comes down collapsed on the platform. Goreng puts Miharu on his cot to heal. When she wakes, Miharu kills Imoguiri’s dog before continuing another descent.

Distraught over her dog’s death, Imoguiri remembers processing Miharu’s admission. Imoguiri says Miharu, a former actress, has no children or family and claims she is merely crazy.

Goreng wakes on level 202 the next month. Goreng discovers Imoguiri hanged herself rather than try to survive for 30 days that far down. Imoguiri’s ghost tells Goreng she gave him her body to eat as a gift rather than jumping down the hole to die.

Goreng wakes on level 6 the next month with new cellmate Baharat. Baharat, an optimistic and physically strong religious man who brought a rope, tries getting help from the cellmates above to climb to the top of the VSC. The lovers on level 5 instead defecate on Baharat’s face and he loses his rope.

Goreng convinces Baharat to go along with a plan where they ensure everyone eats by descending with the platform and threatening violence against anyone who takes more than their fair share. The two men arm themselves with metal rods from their cots. Refusing to let the first 50 floors eat at all since they ate the previous day, Goreng and Baharat bash the heads of anyone who doesn’t cooperate.

When he learns of their plan, fellow prisoner Brambang tells Goreng and Baharat that if they want to send a message to The Administration, they must keep a panna cotta intact to send back to level zero as a symbol. Baharat begins desperately protecting the dessert as the two men continue their descent.

Finding more murdered cellmates the lower they go, Goreng and Baharat eventually come upon two men stabbing Miharu. Goreng and Baharat suffer severe wounds fighting the attackers, but Miharu dies anyway.

Goreng and Baharat continue to level 333 where they find Mali, a little girl, hiding under a cot. Goreng and Baharat get off the platform, but it continues descending, leaving them stranded. Goreng convinces Baharat to feed Mali the panna cotta.

While unconscious from his wounds, visions of Trimagasi, Imoguiri, and Baharat tell Goreng that the girl is actually the message. When he wakes, Goreng finds Baharat dead in a pool of his own blood. Goreng takes Mali on the next platform all the way to the bottom of a dark chamber where the platform stops.

A vision of Trimagasi tells Goreng that he doesn’t need to escort the girl because Mali alone is the message. Goreng walks off into the darkness with Trimagasi while Mali ascends.

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Review:

You can get into ‘The Pit’ one of two ways. Most people enter involuntarily. Operated by a faceless regime referred to as ‘The Administration,’ the Vertical Self-Management Center, or VSC for short, functions as a correctional facility. Prisoners are paired with one other person and assigned to simple, rectangular rooms stacked one on top of another. In the center sits a large square hole, creating an open shaft that connects seemingly endless cells as far down as the eye can see.

Once each day, a platform full of Michelin-quality food descends down that shaft, stopping for two minutes at each floor. Supposedly, there’s enough for everyone to eat. But there’s no authority to control who takes what or how much. Upper floors greedily gorge like animals at a trough while lower levels dig through progressively more disgusting scraps, if anything remains at all.

Slight hope exists, however. At the start of each month, cellmates switch levels, apparently according to some random whim of an imaginary roulette wheel. Maybe you’ll enjoy fine wine and lobster on one of the first few floors. Maybe you’ll be dumped down to a triple-digit level, where starving cellmates consider carving each other like Thanksgiving turkeys.

Goreng goes into The Pit on his own accord. He’s told if he serves a six-month term, the government will grant him a diploma. Allowed just one personal item, Goreng brings a book, thinking he’ll pass the time enlightening his mind while curing his nicotine addiction too.

Initially unaware of exactly how the VSC operates, Goreng soon discovers he willingly but unwittingly entered a dystopian nightmare where the haves and the have-nots change identities every 30 days. Survival has little use for civility here. To have any chance of staying alive in a place where society resorts to savagery, Goreng must find a way to break the system before it breaks him.

Like ‘The Pit,’ you can also get into “The Platform” one of two ways. The first is simply as a superb, Spartan, suspenseful thriller that entertainingly and intelligently engages the imagination. Or, you can stare with scared eyes at its eerily accurate allegory. The movie douses itself in chilling commentary on capitalist culture, then lights a frightening match using visceral violence and sensational splatter that shocks and awes in equal measure.

“The Platform’s” food for thought couldn’t possibly be any more urgent. Unlike the communal buffet in the film, this feast should be consumed voraciously, indulgently, and with minds as open as the hungry maws taking it all in.

As I write this in late March 2020, the entire outside world remains locked in a state of self-quarantine social distancing due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly from American politicians desperate to correct a rapidly nose-diving economy, we’re seeing a response of callous unconcern regarding acceptable losses, with some ready to strand senior citizens and the terminally ill as collateral sacrifices for a future of possible prosperity. High concept premises featuring once unimaginable scenarios no longer seem steeped in fantastical sci-fi. We’re closer than ever to “Logan’s Run” or “The Purge” (review here) becoming a reality. And “The Platform” is far out in front on the bleeding edge of cautionary fables that are almost too terrifyingly relatable in these increasingly troubling times.

Also as I write this, filmdom mourns the passing of Master of Horror Stuart Gordon. Coincidentally, I came across this Gordon quote that fits “The Platform’s” big picture purpose perfectly: “People think horror movies are kind of mindless, but in actuality they’re a way of making statements about things that people really are afraid to talk about.”

“The Platform” contains an extraordinary amount of content to unpack for a 90-minute movie with a single location and just five fully featured characters. Because of the background needed to build the rules of this world while seeding setups that keep the plot turning, exposition comes at the audience constantly. But the strange setting is so alluring, each new detail delivered via dialogue fosters further fascination with the fiction instead of anything close to fatigue.

Intense performances from Ivan Massague as Goreng and Zorian Equileor as his cellmate Trimagasi consistently captivate. Simple exchanges become rich confrontations as these two men teeter-totter between disparate dispositions and alternating attitudes that maintain one eye on friendship and the other on suspicion. Even when they’re being funny, which is frequently, “The Platform” keeps tension high by merely suggesting dreaded cruelties yet to come.

No one has to reach far to make a claim that some metaphors get submerged in murk. Specifically, the last two minutes bite on a bit of open-to-interpretation dreaminess after most of the movie stays starkly upfront about its thematic intentions.

But “The Platform” is never pretentious, even when it’s being slightly ambiguous. Hard hits of action soaked in bloody shocks keep heavy-handedness at bay. The movie never tries to be cleverer than the story permits either. David Desola and Pedro Rivera’s smart scripting creates a wide berth where disbelief can easily be suspended on a coat rack as long as required. Director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia makes the most out of minimal space with creative camerawork and staging, establishing a line of credit that isn’t overcharged by unearned artfulness.

“The Platform” creates a time capsule that puts 2020’s social climate in a provocative perspective. Whether it’s making humorous digs about getting fleeced by a misleading infomercial or turning escargot into a personal parallel, I can’t immediately recall another movie that has so effectively and economically conceptualized current event topics such as socialism, Darwinism, and class structure. And yet “The Platform” puts 21st-century politics under a microscope without undercutting its mainstream mystique as nerve-wracking sci-fi cinema along the lines of “Cube” or “Fermat’s Room.”

NOTE: The film’s Spanish title is “El hoyo.”

Review Score: 90

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