THE PLATFORM – A STUNNINGLY HORRIFIC SATIRE

When almost all of the world is quarantined and is forced to stay inside the four walls of their homes, this movie might be the best time to watch now. Netflix’s The Platform is a very stunning satire about the world, filled with horror, gore and just downright grossness. The movie has a very simple message which you cannot ignore even if you choose to. Read this review of The Platform without being spoiled to any of the grotesqueness that this movie holds.

“There are three kinds of people; the ones above, the ones below, and the ones who fall.”

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform is his debut full-length work that strikes the core in all of us, as audiences. The Platform is a satirical cannibalistic allegory on Capitalism. The allegory that is slathered on each and every frame of The Platform is very clear as you continue to dive more and more into the movie with each passing minute. Albeit, what Galder is after might not be clear to some until the very end. The movie shows us not how we should eat the rich for our survival but rather how the poor devour each other every chance they get. Everything in this movie, from the simple set to the cast to the music score to the writing to the dialogues is simply and utterly beautiful and artistic. The movie adopts the idea of Vincenzo Natali’s Cube and Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and gives it its very own twist with spectacular violence, sadism, altruism, and even more violence. Amy Nicholson from Variety wrote that, “the film’s minimalist fury feels like the plays of Samuel Beckett.” The characters of The Platform might not have depth in them but the plot itself has a lot of depth and David Desola & Pedro Rivero, the writers, have not missed any opportunity to coat every scene with the message they initially began with.

The film’s cast includes Iván Massagué, Antonia San Juan, Zorion Eguileor, Emilio Buale Coka and Alexandra Masangkay. Zorion Eguileor’s, who plays Trimagasi, acting has been hailed as absolutely phenomenal and his performance feels like an audition to play a Bond villain, or perhaps the Spanish resurrection of Hannibal Lecter, as Amy Nicholson of Variety mentions. Goreng, played by Iván Massagué, the main protagonist, is the very stature of altruism and the opposite of the allegorical idea that this movie is portraying. Goreng, by the end of the movie, is considered to be the Messiah who has come to save all those stuck in this prison, The Pit, in a future dystopic-Spain. Imoguiri, played by Antonia San Juan, is a character who is introduced only to give us more information about the mechanics of this prison and who might be behind it. She herself doesn’t know much about the prison and calls it a Vertical Self-Management Center. Whereas the character of Miharu, played by Alexandra Masangkay, is a character who seems very out of place and doesn’t look like it belongs in the prison. In order to not spoil anything, all we can say is, stick till the very end to understand the reason of this character being in The Pit. Baharat, Emilio Buale Coka, is like Baruch to Prophet Jeremiah. He helps Goreng on his pursuit to beat the system and the machinery. One needs to look out for the character of Goreng and Trimagasi to get the most of this movie and the idea behind it.

The ending of this movie is not satisfying in any sense of the word and we, as audience, are left to crave for more and a wish to know what happened. But we believe that is exactly what Galder, Desola and Rivero were aiming for. The movie won Goya Award for Best Special Effects and Gaudí Award for Best Visual Effects and also won the People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness at 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie premiers today on Netflix and it surely going to be a cult-classic, sooner or later.

“A great man who is sin-ridden can only be a great sinner, the wealthy man who is not generous will be a miserly beggar. The owner of the wealth is not made happy by owning it, but by spending it, and not by spending it capriciously, but by knowing how to spend it well.“

Yusuf Aziz is a student pursuing English Honors from Jamia Millia Islamia.