The Platform (Galder Gztelu-Urrutia: 2019)

 

            There have been many movies that reflect on the human condition under extreme conditions like The Road, Highrise, and many others, mostly on the post-apocalyptic genre. The Platform is not different: what if there was a prison where the inmates were distributed by numerous levels along a tower that descends a unknown number of floors and are fed from a platform that descends through a pit at the centre of each floor?

Well, the protagonist has volunteered to enter this prison and is instructed in its’ rules by his cellmate, who is serving time to commute a life sentence for murder. Their relationship builds on the routine of the first month in the prison, but as each cell is moved randomly up or down floors, they end up in one of the lower levels, thus coming to a confrontation that leads to the death of the cellmate, and him becoming a ghost that haunts the protagonist for the rest of the movie.

One movie quote kept coming back to me has I thought on this movie: “Welcome to the human race”, spoken by Snake Plisskin in the end of Escape From Los Angeles (another type of satire on the human condition under extreme circumstances). Why? Because every prisoner encountered by the protagonist of The Platform has a different view on how to deal with their imprisonment, but the conclusion always seems inevitable: the lower you are in the levels the more you crave for survival and entering the upper levels in order to live better or, more precisely, to eat better.

The ending is hopeful, although not for the protagonist himself, and leaves the viewer either feeling disgusted or a little hopeful. I recommend watching this one, unless you are very squeamish about food, because the way food is showed in it can almost take your appetite away.