Last Night I Watched: ‘The Platform’

Due to isolation not allowing me to watch films with my friends as I used to, using the chrome extension ‘Netflix Party,’ a couple of friends and I decided to check out Netflix’s most popular film at the time of writing – Spanish film The Platform. I had seen the film trending on Letterboxd, so it would be nothing less than unprofessional for me to not check it out while it’s being talked about. Frankly, I wish I’d chosen to be unprofessional.

The film is only just over an hour and a half and there are around five montages to signify the quiz passage of time with the editing of those passages being jarring at best.

As a student, an anti-capitalist message in a film is something you would think I’d celebrate. However, as a film reviewer, this particular anti-capitalist message was one of the most ham-fisted and preachy themes I can remember seeing in any film. The Platform is about a prison in which there are many levels. A platform filled with food descends through the prison every day and the prisoners take the food they can and leave the leftovers for the rest below. It seems to be the most one-sided ‘artistic’ analysis of trickle-down economics (the strawman argument made against supply-side economics) that one could possibly make.

We follow one man named Goreng (Ivan Massague) as he has to live here for six months. Why is he there? He volunteered. Why did he volunteer? No real motivation is ever given for this action aside from the facts that Goreng wanted to quit smoking and read a book. His personality never develops beyond just being a paragon, refusing to do anything wrong. When he eventually does have to fight for food, there’s no real feeling that Goreng had any issue with it. This is probably due to the fact that the film should have taken more time to develop its characters, the film is only just over an hour and a half and there are around five montages to signify the quiz passage of time, the editing of those passages was jarring at best – and vomit-inducing at worst, we could have had some time with Goreng on his own during these times and be given time to care for and sympathise with his character more.

Since when did we allow films dealing with complex themes a free pass just for dealing complex themes, no matter how ineffective the filmmaking itself is?

After watching the film, I was surprised to learn that it was intended to be a horror film. There was one moment near the beginning of the film involving cannibalism which managed to spook me a bit, but after a certain point in the film, the gore is beyond excessive to the point where it is no longer scary. A moment near the end of the film shows a corpse with a body severed in half and that made me laugh instead of cowering in fear. The violence seemed more gratuitous than scary, which is fine if you’re making some silly action film but when you’re trying to hammer home a message about the evils of our system then it makes no sense to have silly amounts of violence.

Reviews for this film and The Invisible Man make me worry a bit for film criticism – since when did we allow films dealing with complex themes a free pass just for dealing complex themes, no matter how ineffective the filmmaking itself is? How the filmmaking impacts you by conveying these themes is what makes filmmaking special – how relevant the themes are is not what determines if a film is good or bad.

It leaves so many questions unanswered in the hopes that you’ll think about it and potentially talk about it with friends

Watching both of these films feels like watching a writer start with a relevant theme and try to fraud their way into making a good script through the theme alone, forgetting to write good characters, a plot that makes sense or relatable dialogue. The flaws of both films are weirdly similar – both are repetitive, have glaring plot-holes and supporting characters that just aren’t compelling – even though they had every opportunity to be.

The ending of The Platform angered me most. It leaves so many questions unanswered in the hopes that you’ll think about it and potentially talk about it with friends – in the same way a pretentious person will deliberately use longer words to try and appear profound. If anything, the filmmakers overcame me. I’ve written 700 words talking about it due to how much it infuriated me, so at least the ending and the film itself managed to inspire some form of conversation.