The meaning of the film The Platform: description of the plot, ending. The Platform is a Spanish-made psychological thriller film produced by Netflix. The film was directed by Halder Gastel-Urrutia. The meaning of the film The Platform is designed to reveal the difficult everyday life of prisoners in a special prison. It consists of an unknown number of levels, each containing 2 prisoners. The captives are united by a common well, through which food is dropped daily in a platform. Like all films with meaning, the plot contains an obligatory snag.
Description of the story
The plot of the film The Platform describes the misadventures of Goreng, who was imprisoned voluntarily. In exchange for a six-month term, he was promised an accredited diploma plus the opportunity to quit smoking. Along with civilians, the institution contains real criminals, murderers. Criminal neighbor – Trimagasi got caught by the main character (he dealt with an illegal immigrant, as he assured, by negligence).
Rules
The cellmate explained to Goreng the rules of being in prison:
- prisoners are allowed to take one item with them;
- every day, cooks prepare delicious food for the prisoners, which is then lowered by an iron platform;
- food lingers at the level of 2 minutes;
- it is forbidden to leave food for the future, prisoners must eat everything at once;
- violation of the rules is punished (it becomes unbearably cold / hot in the cell);
- Monthly prisoners are sedated with gas, randomly changed floors. Those who occupied the top can move to the lower levels.
Under externally imposed conditions, the best food goes to the higher levels. Goreng and his cellmate were caught on the 48th floor. They had to be satisfied with the leftovers. According to Trimagassi, prisoners living closer to level 100 are forced to starve. Some in an effort to survive do not disdain cannibalism.
On a note! The inhabitants of the vertical prison call it “the pit”. The director and screenwriters hint in an unusual way what the meaning of the film Platform is. In Western theology, the pit is synonymous with purgatory. With endless circles of torture. The total number of floors is also not accidental, 333 – exactly half of 666.
Miharu
One day on the platform, Goreng notices a woman. The character’s name is later revealed to be Miharu. The heroine has long unsuccessfully searched for a child lost in the last levels. The newly-made acquaintance will later save Goreng from death. Finding himself much lower (level 71), Trimagashi ties up an inmate. Miharu appears at the moment when the old man cut off a piece of the protagonist’s leg with a hidden knife. Together they manage to cope with the criminal, after which the woman continues her search. For the rest of the month, Goreng is forced to feed on a corpse.
The picture is changing dramatically due to the next level change. The cellmate of the protagonist (33rd floor) becomes a former employee of the prison administration (Imoguiri). Goreng learns the pit is built on 200 levels. If each prisoner eats exactly 1 portion, there will be enough food for everyone. The purpose of Imoguiri’s arrival is to convince the prisoners to follow the rules that can help them stay full (the heroine herself has the last stage of cancer).
Realizing the deceit of former colleagues, having lost the closest creature (a taken dog), Imoguiri decides to hang himself on the first day of his stay on the 202nd floor. The platform comes empty. Goreng is forced to eat the corpse again for a month.
Ending and hidden meaning
Closer to the end of the film, Platform Goreng meets his second cellmate, Baharat (level 6). He set a goal to escape from a vertical prison, with which a hidden rope should help. It is not possible to carry out the plan. The inhabitants of the upper floor refuse to help. Then together the comrades decide to break the system and visit the lower levels on the platform. Along the way, distributing 1 serving of food to prisoners.
Sage
The updated meaning of the ending of the film The Platform appears when friends in misfortune meet the sage in the cell. He convinces that it is necessary to change the consciousness not of the prisoners, but of the prison administration. An easy way to do this is to send a message upstairs.
According to Goreng’s initial estimates, the prison contained about 250 floors. The main character was unaware of an important fact. The platform passes by floors where there are no living prisoners. As a result, the total number of levels was 333. It turned out that the pit was designed for 666 prisoners. In one of the cells, they notice the prisoners attacking Mihara. It is not possible to save the woman, and the heroes are mortally wounded.
The way the Platform movie ended raises a lot of questions. When the Platform arrives on the 333rd floor, the half-dead comrades discover the girl. It is not clear how she got there. Perhaps this is a figment of the imagination or a detail of an experiment on people, a child who has spent several months in a pit already looks very clean. The protagonist gives her the only remaining dish – panna cotta, gives way to the platform. In the final shots, the elevator with the girl shoots up at breakneck speed.
Purgatory
The main point of the film Platform: Prison is an analogy with the real world. Having received blessings, a person often becomes irrepressible in appetites. Against this background, others, at best, are leftovers. The same model of society was embodied in a vertical prison. The prisoners found themselves in some kind of purgatory. Zero level – unattainable heaven, the girl is a symbol of dreams, hope.
On a note! Goreng literally means “to fry”. The name of the key character was not chosen by chance. It symbolizes the torment to which the hero decided to doom himself, remaining at the bottom of the pit.
You can interpret the ending, the meaning of the movie The Platform in different ways. Someone recognizes in the picture an exclusively religious overtones, where sinners are rewarded according to their merits. The second ones are sure that the girl is a figment of the imagination of the brain of the dying protagonist. Still others believe that a special survival experiment was put on prisoners in prison. Everyone is right in their own way. This is a considerable merit of the director, because creating a picture that you want to talk about, analyze even after viewing, is worth a lot.
