THE PLATFORM review - Dog-killing aside...

 (Reviewed by Melody Werner)

El Hoyo, or The Platform, is a 2019 sci-fi thriller directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, which was dubbed in a variety of languages by Netflix in 2020. It features Iván Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Alexandra Masangkay, and Emilio Buale. Ahhhhhhh, reviewing a movie again after all this time feels like coming home. It is time to Make Popcorn & Fizz Great Again (alternatively, MP&FGA)! And what better way to obviously put the popcorn and fizz back into the Popcorn & Fizz Reviews, than to review such a crowd-pleasing blockbuster as this anti-capitalist movie with a completely dark premise, tons of brutal violence, an open ending that's sure to get dinguses tossing it a negative review for "not answering questions", and a poor little pupper that gets horribly butchered? Yeah... The Platform isn't exactly a fun movie to watch, but it is a brilliant, compelling one all the same, obviously. Its premise is that there is a vertical prison which has a platform that lowers from floor to floor. Each floor has two prisoners, and no one knows how many levels there are. This platform carries down food and drinks to the poor souls trapped in this hellhole, and thus provides the only means of eating... unless, of course, you don't mind the taste of human flesh and manage to kill your roomie. After all, it's the only way to survive if the platform has no food on it by the time it gets to you. Obviously. Each month, the floors are reordered at random, so someone can go from the fiftieth floor (where you can still get dibs on some grub, but naturally less than the top floor might), to the two-hundred-fortieth (where you kill or be killed, eat or be eaten). If it wasn't already obvious, this is a metaphor for capitalism, the rat race we all endure as we scrabble for table scraps that the top crust "deigns" to afford us. Dog-killing aside... I think it's safe to say that this is one of the best movies. As in, like, period? Ever? Yeah.

The Platform gets by with little in the way of budget, focusing on telling a tight, meaningful story instead of wowing us with CGI. Everything is in service of the story it is trying to tell, and the message it means to share. The confined space of the prison makes things tense as hell, causing it to always feel as though the other shoe is going to drop at a moment's notice, but it obviously also kept the budget within reason. The platform itself is a block of cruel rock that simply hovers in the air, which is a cool visual that doesn't take millions and millions to achieve. Its musical score is subtle, but suits the movie well and--again, probably didn't take as much dosh as it would to entice a big-name composer. Likewise, I can't imagine that the sound effects on display were the work of Hollywood's finest, but they're all convincing and add to the viewing experience. None of the cast on-screen is recognizable internationally (though they are well-respected and popular regionally), but they all put in outstanding performances without distracting you into thinking "oh, that's Black Widow" or whatever. This all said, the film never feels cheap--tossing more and more and more money at a film is not naturally going to make it any better, and in the case of The Platform, I think that dumping loads more cash into it probably would've made it worse, if anything. I never thought to myself, "man, if only they'd had a huge budget." As imagery of a decadent gourmet is devoured by haggardly poor souls trapped in this daunting prison, I struggle to pretend that decadent production values would have made the film a better one.

Thematically, I obviously fuck with The Platform. I decided on watching this in spite of my aversion to horror, on the recommendation of two comrades I enjoy on YouTube.com (namely Scaredy Cats and coldcrashpictures), who got me intrigued enough. As with Overlord, however, I'm perplexed that this movie gets called a horror flick? The Platform is more interested in existential dread and bloody imagery than going "aboogawoogiewoo" at you. And obviously I know that more contemplative horror exists, but the film kept me chilled and sick to my stomach (on purpose)--not afraid. I slept like a baby after watching this. Except for thinking about the dog, which I still think about, because fucking hell was that gruesome. Considering the dog-killing, however... I must admit, it makes perfect sense in the context of the film, showing how easily the prisoners can be motivated to monumental acts of violence, and the dog-killer actually remains a sympathetic character after the slaughtering because you know why they did it, if you put two and two together. For what it's worth, you know it's coming when it's coming. Avert your eyes.

Not to be disrespectful or anything, but The Platform is not a film that's interested in spoonfeeding its narrative to you. It puts a lot of trust in you to think things through and to come to your own conclusions. Its ending is satisfying, but it leaves you on a lot of open questions on purpose. It wants you to think of your own answers, and I love that. Hell, you know how I said that this movie was an obvious metaphor for classism? It isn't! I've spoken to a leftie friend who took it as being a metaphor for how people put all of their hope into a higher power that "generously" blesses them with their table scraps, and it's not as though his interpretation is wrong or untenable, he made a very good argument for that reading of it. The Platform really lives up to being "food for thought," doesn't it?

But let's chitchat the plot, because it really, really isn't that complex, I don't think. Goreng is our protagonist, a decent man who comes to the "Vertical Self-Management Center" (a clinical title to sanitize the horrors within) voluntarily. If Goreng stays his term, he gets an accredited degree without having to put down thousands of dollars he doesn't have to go to college and make a decent living. Not knowing what he's getting into, as little about the "VSMC" is known to the outside world (possibly because survival is rare, maybe even unheard of), he decides to bring a copy of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha when told he can bring one item of his choice into the "VSMC". Most would've brought a gun or knife instead.

Goreng could definitely be perceived as being a quixotic figure, at least initially--attempting to start a revolution by simply asking those above to ration their food so that everyone can survive. And it works! That's right, the movie just ends like that! Well, obviously, it does not end so easily. It does not end easily at all, in fact. The Platform is not a film interested in being something that's easy to scarf down. Painting the power elite as cruel, unfeeling, and entertained by the depravity depicted within the prison, and the systems they've woven like a trap for those they exploit--it's not a feelgood movie that you're going to want to rewatch anytime soon, because it really can be stomach-churning. It has to be, to get its message across. But you'll think about it, you'll mull things over. And I think that's a fuckin' beautiful thing.

Am I biased? Do I enjoy The Platform purely because I see it as being aligned with my own worldview? No, I don't think so. I think the film-making is superlative, the writing is top of the class, that it's wonderfully acted, that the tension it squeezes out of this concept is disturbing, that the ideas it conveys are thought-provoking. I think that "solidarity or shit" is a great motto, and I think that this is a great film for critiquing capitalism so thoughtfully. The Platform gets a 10/10. Obviously.

Masterpiece

Summary:

One of the best films of the 2010's and 2020's, a harrowing watch--but it's all for good reason.