Here’s a movie that was no doubt was inspired by “Snowpiercer,” but lacks the visual excitement, let alone the reeling inventiveness, of Bong Joon-ho’s sci-fi movie.
Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s Netflix-produced “The Platform” premiered directly via streaming in late February, where, I’m sure due to people being locked in and having nothing but Netflix to watch, it started trending around social media circles and quickly became one of the most-streamed movies in March.
However, if you’ve seen “Snowpiercer,” not to mention “Cube,” “Saw,” not much feels fresh in “The Platform,” its “bottle” concept not necessarily new cinematic DNA ditto its upstairs/downstairs socialist allegory. In fact, there is nothing subtle about Gaztelu-Urrutia’s messaging here, capitalism needs to be eradicated this film claims, the wealth must be spread amongst the people, otherwise, get ready for the direst of consequences.
Still, I will give the writers credit for showing some valid realities about world history and society today, capitalism isn’t perfect and the flaws do prey on the poor, more so than any other class. But watching this film during COVID-19, where borders are becoming essential to containing the pandemic, the globalist messaging of “The Platform” hollower than ever before.
The film, set In a not-too-distant future, deals with prisoners housed in vertical cells as inmates in the upper cells are fed while those below starve to the point of having to succumb to cannibalism. Bong Joon-ho, again that guy, dealt with the hierarchal flaws of our society in a much more entertaining fashion in “Parasite.”
Clocking in at a minuscule 94 minutes also prevents “The Platform” from having much meat on its bones, a little longer runtime would have developed the plot further and prevented the outrageously rushed climax. That’s really too bad because the cast here does deliver the goods, especially Iván Massagué as Goreng the main character by which we see this dystopian future.
However, Gaztelu-Urrutia is ignorant of the fact that, even with the best-intentioned communist systems, there will always be a hierarchy. Just as in George Orwell had warned in “Animal Farm,” some animals are more equal than others. The same goes for our own species. The problem is that humanity is inherently flawed and corrupt, regardless, and these supposedly universal and benevolent systems end up flipping on the masses just like capitalism, monarchies, or any other previous system they rally against. It’s not fantasy thinking either, it’s in the history books, the USSR and Venezuela being the main recent examples.