The Platform (2020) - Movie Review

Much like with the sudden public resurgence Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion has experienced, this feature’s moment of trending recently makes a depressing level of sense.  An ostensibly straight-forward Spanish feature that uses architecture to portray class divide; what separates those higher from those lower, using food as the primary political symbol, similar to The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. This has been a world of dietary inequality long before everything went into lockdown, but now that we’re in the midst of fearful hoarding of food to last out the potential months this shit could carry on for, it reaches a particular level of poignancy in the current climate.

A relatively sparse bit of social satire, this film basically works for the same reason films like Cube do: Because the setting, and the main impetus of the plot, are as simple as they are, that means extra care can be put into the details of how this all works and why it’s here in the first place. And as a starting point for commentary on societal structures, it is so astute as to make me quite uncomfortable at how little has ultimately changed, even as we go through one of the most drastic re-arrangements in recent history.

The premise itself is fairly rudimentary, but its true genius comes in the little things. Things like how the inmates of the giant tower the film is set in get shuffled around between floors, sometimes ending up near the top or near the bottom seemingly at random. Even for the financially stable, this should ring true; one month, you’ve got more than enough to last till the next paycheck, but then the next, some unexpected expense brings you closer to the red. And that’s if you’re even lucky enough to have regular pay in the first place, which given our current situation is the kind of luck fewer people have than seemingly ever before.

But what makes social inequality truly suck the big one isn’t simply the conditions that create it. True, seeing so many people basically in a lottery on which level they end up each month, and in turn how much food they can get from the titular Platform, is pretty fucking dire… but that’s not even the worst of it. That comes with the attitude that these conditions engender; the notion that the odds are stacked up against them, and that they’ve already been subjected to the cruelty of others, so they see no reason not to pay it forward, as it were. ‘The world treated me like shit, so I’ll return the favour’.

It’s a thought pattern that is unfortunately understandable, as it’s not easy to extend kindness to others when you haven’t been shown any yourself… but it’s also one that only serves to perpetuate the suffering. It’s a domino effect that will only engender more of the same, ensuring that this unjust system remains as it is. And even for those wanting to change things, that’s easier said than done; people tend to be the problem with every attempt at political revolution. But as we watch new prisoner Goreng as he learns the mechanics of the Platform, a true revolutionary spirit makes itself known. As much informed by Communist doctrine as he is by Don Quixote, he embodies the tortured but altruistic heart of the film.

This is the best kind of high-concept storytelling, to the point where I find myself yet again far more intrigued by the ideas presented than by any sort of technical detail. It really is that engrossing and gave me a lot of think about regarding social solidarity and the obstacles in its way, and I’ll even admit to being surprised that a concept this simple could unravel into something so mesmerising in its detail.