Review | The Platform film review: Spanish sci-fi shows trickle-down economics at its most grotesque
- In this sci-fi allegory by Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, prisoners housed in vertical cell blocks dictate how much food to leave those in floors below
- The film draws some painful conclusions about humanity’s primal nature and willingness to exploit the weak, all done with a brilliantly barbed sense of humour
4/5 stars
Trickle-down economics is served up at its most literal and unpalatable in The Platform, a brutalist sci-fi allegory by Spanish director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia.
In the film, prisoners within a towering high-rise structure fight it out for food, delivered on a descending monolithic slab of concrete. It falls to the inmates, confined two to each floor, to leave sufficient repast for those below, but with great power comes, for many, the temptation to exploit and deprive those less fortunate.
Winner of the Midnight Madness Audience Award at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, The Platform seasons its robust economics creed with devilishly dark humour, and a palpable sense of danger.
We are drawn into this nightmare by Goreng (Ivan Massagué), who volunteers for a six-month stretch in an effort to quit smoking and finally read Don Quixote. Every month, inmates are moved to a different floor, and partnered with a new cellmate, ranging from violet criminals to political prisoners, and occasionally even undocumented residents.
Goreng encounters a range of different cellmates with differing views. Some, like Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor) the murderer, are only too willing to spoil what food he cannot consume himself, while the compassionate Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan) uses her time at the trough to prepare carefully balanced portions for those below.