The Platform 2

Released 2024. Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

IN PRISON YOU EAT WHAT YOU'RE GIVEN. Don't like what you see? Tough. If you've seen The Platform you'd recall it offers an impossible scenario. In this vertical prison, a platform loaded with a sumptuous feast descends each day, stopping at every level for the inmates’ daily feed. Those on the higher levels dig in while those on the lower levels end up with little or none.

In 2020 The Platform was one of the most watched original films on Netflix. Although the setting is exactly the same in this follow-up (some say it’s a sequel, others a prequel), The Platform 2 deals less with the social stratification (the obvious metaphor of classes with the populace divided among many levels) but expands upon the idea of forming groups and governing.

Unlike the all-you-can-eat premise in the first movie, this time inmates are only allowed to eat what they’ve chosen at admission. It means you only eat one type of food for the rest of your sentence here, be it months or years, in all likelihood until the day you die. The unfortunate lot stuck in this dilemma learn that the choice of your dish is not the issue but rather, what others make of everyone else’s choices, what you do about it, and the consequences of an all-out food fight.

The main character is Perempuan, who finds out pretty quickly the community in this concrete tower don’t care for basic table manners. The spread of food on the platform gets messed up out of frustration and greed. The daily feeding routine is fraught with uncertainty and dread. Perempuan gets her plate of croquette but if her cellmate Zamiatin doesn’t get his full serve of pizza, the man will get into a violent outburst like the Hulk.

Nobody likes it when their food gets eaten by others or trampled on, so a few of them start to form alliances. There are elements of Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy here on how the prisoners organise themselves into a social structure, make agreements for the common good and surrender their personal liberty.

Peace is not a feature in a place like this. The prisoners mete out their own system of punishments in the belief that transgression must be met with retribution. In this regard The Platform 2 is more violent and isn’t coy about the depiction of brutality that an angry mob is able to inflict.

Like its predecessor, religious connotation is writ large and unsubtle. Amidst the disorder arises a leader they handily called the “Anointed One” and even the “Messiah”. I don’t have to describe what he looks like to tell you who he’s supposed to resemble. I didn’t count the number of his followers but it wouldn’t be a surprise to find twelve of them.

The movie’s take on religious zealotry is clear just looking at how the Messiah wields his authority, certainly the contrary to the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself”. By making the Messiah a blind man only accentuates the pointed critique. 

As a high-concept allegory, The Platform 2 dispenses with the restriction of internal logic. How much of what we see really happened and how much is a projection is not always clear. There’s a brief shot of Goreng, the hero from The Platform, at the end of the movie holding a child. His appearance is less of a meaningful development than an inclusion for the sake of suggesting a connection with Perempuan. The presence of active and happy children playing – obviously they have enough to eat – is dubious. Their function as currency to control the inmates doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The defeatist worldview is even more pronounced this time. An inspired scene showing us how the unconscious prisoners are moved between levels by floating divers who defy gravity is not only surreal, it also suggests that no matter how hard they fight, they have no control where they end up. The inescapable cycle continues. The system and collective human nature will always defeat you.

While The Platform was a hit when it came out, reportedly watched by 56 million households in the first four weeks of release, it had much to do with where we were in 2020. Confined at home in lockdowns, daily life for many people became repetitive and weary, even uncertain and worrying for some. A movie like The Platform brought resonance. Four years later, the bleak and pessimistic message in The Platform 2 doesn’t have the same effect, even though people can be just as selfish, irrational and unsympathetic. If they’ll be making The Platform 3, I hope someone finally gets out, feels the warmth of the sun and shows us where human nature takes us when given a chance at renewal and freedom.

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