No.8719
Watched The Platform yesterday and let it sit for a bit. So, here are my takes on it.
First, on the ending. The way I interpret it is that either a) He went into delusions after being wounded in the last fight, ate the cake or ruined it some other way, died, but the visions allowed him to cope and go out peacefully, happy that he achieved his goal, or b) He died basically just after the fight, cake survived and he, in his dying visions reinterpreted the situation into a dreamy fantasy where the girl was real.
Alright, with that out of the way, my hot take analysis on the film. I actually don't think the film is that much anti-capitalist. It can definitely be read as it, but it doesn't really fit on a closer analysis. If anything, for me at first sight it seemed anti-communist with the good ol' "muh human nature" vs the ebil utopian socialist administration that want to do creepypasta social experiment to create the new socialist man. However, this analysis also doesn't really stand on further inspection, first due to the fact that some anti-capitalist commentary does indeed exist, but also due to the fact that what I think the movie is trying to tell is way smarter.
So, what do I believe the movie is about then? Well, I think it is a much needed analysis of how material conditions influence humans. The Hole is a fucking concentration camp. One that styles it self to be egalitarian, as everyone will get to experience the lower levels through random chance, but still a concentration camp. The fact is, no matter how much you would want to change a human, they will not accept it if their very survival is threatened. No solidarity can exist in such a place, no chance for some sort of "instant transformation" of how people act. They are driven to desperation and they will fight for their own lives. Not to mention the fact that the place is mismanaged as all hell, with too little food being provided for all the 300+ cells, as well as an inability to even count them all. The best you can do is have "solidarity covered in shit", as the movie says.
Goering chooses Don Quixote as his one item to keep in the Hole as quite a heavy handed symbolism, especially when he eats the book in 202, him self, symbolically, becoming Don Quixote, and the very next month embarking on his final, doomed mission. It is only the wise guru who proposes an alternative: to deliver the cake to the administration, hopefully thus satisfying their insane wishes and finally making them change the material conditions of the entire Hole.
The "leftist" readings of the film have been all the same Zizekian soyfacing over revolutionary suicide to create muh next generation that will bring the change, the way that Snowpiercer, Children of Men and to some extent Vendetta is. However, I argue that it is the exact opposite, a rejection of this take, showing that no, this individual suicide is nothing but a Don-Quixotian self delusion. In the end, it is not clear if the plan succeeded, as the visions before death make it all pretty blurry, but one thing stands true - in the end, if any change happens, it is not because Goering managed to "break the system" by killing some prisoners and feeding the bottom levels for one day, but because the administration might have been forced to change their mind about the entire situation, thus changing its conditions.
As far as the anti-capitalist motives, they are there, but can't be held as a centerpiece imo. The class system is far different than the ones in real life. People are motivated by their own survival, not by need. I fully agree with the first cellmate who says that it is not he who is cannibalizing Goering, but the administration. He is correct. His actions are just rational response to the conditions given, not some sort of personal "greedy" flaw. Also, if it was supposed to be like capitalism, then there is no way that the top floor people wouldn't just stay in their place while shuffling over only the bottom ones. However the one parallel to capitalism that I found really strong was the fear that one must experience knowing that their life could always get destroyed by simple freak accidents, with no one there to help you. The scene where they first wake up in the really low floor, hear the wailing of those who were transported there as well and finally commit suicide felt a lot like hearing the horror stories of American healthcare where people would kill themselves to not leave any loans for their family after getting sick.
In the end, I liked the film, however, it very much reminded me of a certain book called Forrest of the Gods, a memoir of an ex-concentration camp inmate, that basically shows the same situation and leads to quite similar conclusions once you think about it. And this book managed to do it all while also managing to be morbidly funny and enjoyable, while this film was quite hard to watch. However that is no fault of the directors, and it still stays an amazing film for me.