The Platform

The Platform, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, is a 2019 Spanish dystopian social thriller film that delves into the themes of class struggle, oppression, and the consequences of inhumane systems. The story is set in a mysterious, seemingly hermetically sealed vertical facility known as "The Vertical Self-Management Experiment in Isolation". The platform, as the facility is more commonly referred to, is a massive vertical structure where convicts are imprisoned after being deemed guilty of various crimes in their past lives. The structure is a cylindrical mass, divided into different levels, each serving as a cell block housing a distinct class of prisoners. The lowest level, where the original inmates reside, holds the most basic and impoverished conditions, with meager portions of food barely sufficient to sustain its residents. Conversely, the topmost level is populated with the most privileged convicts, relishing lavish meals, the finest accommodations, and the most favorable treatment of all the inmates. The mechanism that regulates food distribution in the facility is a key component of its apparatus. Starting at the top level, a slab of food is delivered to each segment through platforms that move downward at a rate of one level per day. While this order appears to operate effectively, a hierarchical system has developed around it. All the prisoners on the higher levels must descend the vertical platform to access the slab of food, pick what they like from it and then immediately proceed back on the short trip up before the slab disappears. Inversely, prisoners on lower levels climb on to their slab and only upon finishing have the journey back up be an option. However, when the food slab arrives at one area there will be a substantial restriction of what can be carried back in terms of, (usually, just a few containers that hold all the inmates' rations) since those upwards -are above have a short space of time to collect leftovers. On an individual level, this mechanism breeds both compassion and cruelty. Inmates in the higher levels care less and treat those below them as dehumanized creatures, whereas those in the lower strata often suffer the stings of hunger, desperation, even potential death. Lower strata inmates frequently result in violence and the worst crimes, especially as each prisoner in the bottom's sector can rarely obtain the necessary meals and this severe famine almost inevitably brings certain prison death to as little as the prison year. Here, an event precipitates when all inmates become increasingly frustrated with this system and anticipate significant change. For example, a fresh prisoner named Goreng is a somewhat good and clever inmate released into the lowest strata block. At first, Goreng survives by trying to 'learn on' some ways to manage the desperate lives on the bottom but all however does not work well. They also have an upper tier prisoner named Paulo -after falling into the lower block also ends up there after his good crimes done. The lives of the two convicts intersect when Goreng and others find themselves faced with an abyss of extreme famine. To combat the impending tragedy of permanent starvation, an audacious plan evolves - and sees inmates in the top levels either rebel or in other choices share extra quantities of the valuable food upwards at their disposal, for a greater good. As for Goreng attempting through violent combat against this massive rigidity in the highest rungs of leadership/ prison organization only when joined by Paulo has an almost certain survival outcome. Here will only emerge as a chance of hope for the much-abused "lower block" inmates when their rebellion will not prevail but make much clearer change. However, their aggressive struggle starts at this instant after a crucial decision made by the two when they all (more inmates begin following their highly cherished plan) find drastic reason to doubt their fate and believe survival can truly be actualized. In doing so, Goreng in collaboration with Paulo does give the resistance momentum ultimately developing at an almost fast rate up in the rigging. If successful, it gives hope to all the level 1 people, particularly those low down in the very far down of the prison. This encourages their followers and, together they aspire towards the greatest victory towards freedom and survival at greater stages in the "Vertical Self-Management Experiment in Isolation." Goreng's association in the rebellion allows inmates within the mid-tier levels of the prison to band together, after their massive numbers and hope together after the chance for their survival increase a true plan without great fear when combined. Their revolutionary sentiment in trying to obtain fair distribution unambiguously displays their desire to challenge the oppressive system.