THE PLATFORM 2

One of the greatest last lines in English literature comes from George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” And it’s hard not to think of this moment—when the ostensible freedom fighters are fully confirmed as having become oppressors themselves—at several points in Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform 2 / El Hoyo 2, a follow-up to his hugely successful feature debut for Netflix, The Platform (2019).

Several writers have suggested that The Platform 2 is a prequel, not a sequel, which may make some sense. After all, the one major character who appears extensively in both films—Trimagasi (the consistently scene-stealing Zorion Eguileor)—dies in the first. However, expecting everything to stack up neatly with these movies may be a mistake, and it’s probably better to see the two films as variations on the same theme rather than as part of a strictly coherent universe.

In any case, as in the first film, what really matters are the premise and the ideas it leads to, not individuals. Once again, all the characters are inmates of a peculiar prison officially known as the Vertical Self-Management Centre, which consists of 333 cells stacked upon each other, each holding two people. That there are therefore 666 inhabitants is surely intentional but may or may not be meaningful—The Platform 2, even more than its predecessor, throws out plenty of ideas without following them up or knitting them together.

This tower of windowless cells might be subterranean or might soar into the sky; we have no idea because, as in the first film, virtually the entire action is confined to it. Its most important feature is a large platform which descends every day down a void in the centre of the cells, bearing food. The prisoners on each level have two minutes to eat what they can, after which the platform continues to the next level down; if they try to retain any food in their cells for later, grave consequences ensue.

In the first movie, inevitably those at the top gorged themselves while those at the bottom starved or resorted to cannibalism, and the metaphor for a society in which trickle-down economics most definitely don’t work was obvious. This second film, however, adds a new set of rules introduced by the prisoners themselves. Each person must only eat one dish, the one they chose when they were first admitted to the facility; this ensures there is enough for everyone. In fact, says one of the self-appointed guardians of the new regime (Bastien Ughetto), nicknamed Robespierre after the French Revolutionary leader, “freedom has nothing to do with eating whatever you like”.

To this point, it looks like the capitalist critique of The Platform could be developing into a commentary on hardline socialism or communism not too different from Animal Farm’s; the prisoners’ rules might be more equitable where food distribution is concerned, but there is no tolerance for dissent, and those who break them are punished violently (“pacification”). Independent enquiry is discouraged, too; Robespierre says “it’s not important how many levels there are”.

There is even an absurd policy under which the food which would have been allocated to inmates who have died is thrown away, rather than divided among the others, to avoid arguments or the sense that anyone is benefiting from death: a triumph of theoretical principle over practicality, you might think. We are assured that “the system is improving every month”, a phrase reminiscent of North Korean public relations. Later we’re told that “we kill to build a future where no-one will kill”, exactly the kind of thing Orwell’s pigs might have said.

However, The Platform 2 then muddies the metaphorical waters with talk of a figure called The Master who had survived a whole month in one of the lowest cells without eating, and fed the hungry on his own flesh; he]s even referred to as Messiah, and his followers as the Anointed Ones. The parallels to Christianity (Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness, the Eucharist and so on) are clear.

These two very different ideas aren’t followed up convincingly enough for The Platform 2 to work as a metaphor for anything, let alone tied together, and after a relatively strong beginning—with a truly shocking development around 45 minutes in—the film descends into a muddle and loses some of its interest. One of the Anointed Ones, Dagin Babi (Óscar Jaenada), emerges as a kind of villain to balance the more sympathetic protagonist Perempuan (Milena Smit), who organises a group of prisoners to oppose his tyranny; mostly this is an excuse for a lot of travelling between levels on the food platform (ironically destroying the food in the process) and a lot of violence.

Much of it is as powerfully filmed as the first movie, although with so much more action, more moving between levels and a few more special effects, it lacks the sense of ominous stasis which frequently permeated The Platform. Travelling the few feet to another level no longer seems fraught with danger. Still, the close camerawork conveys the claustrophobia of the prison well, as do the monotonous lighting—mostly red or a concrete-grey half-light—and Aitor Etxebarria’s musical score, rarely going anywhere much but simply intensifying the moment. The single bass notes that warn the inmates when the platform is about to move are effectively sinister again; a brief appearance by a Tchaikovsky waltz adds a touch of surrealism.

As in the first film, too, the platform itself is a fascinating, tantalising centrepiece—literally—to many scenes: in both movies Gaztelu-Urrutia successfully draws our attention to it just as hungrily as the prisoners’, but holds back from showing the food for too long, always leaving us wanting more. Interestingly, though, the Spanish title translates as “hole” or “pit”, putting the emphasis on the depth of the facility itself rather than the food delivery mechanism.

Few of the cast have much chance to shine – despite occasional speeches narrating personal back story, we are told little about them, and they rarely form interpersonal relationships; they are pretty much defined by their positions in the prison and their roles in the struggle between the two groups of prisoners. Gaztelu-Urrutia loves distinctive faces and several of the cast appear to have been selected purely for their out-of-the-ordinary looks. Still, Smit holds her own as Perempuan, not least by managing not to become too much of a kick-ass heroine, and Hovik Keuchkerian is memorable as one of her cellmates, an apparent pyromaniac who may or may not have been a brilliant mathematician.

Imagination, reality and time are sometimes blurred, but you can never be sure whether this is Gaztelu-Urrutia playing deliberately with the boundaries or merely another symptom of his tendency to cram the film with seductive ideas regardless of how well they work together, or don’t. The ending is simply baffling, even more so than that of the first film (which it echoes in some ways), and some viewers may feel cheated by the lack of any comprehensible explanation.

Even the premise is irritatingly vague in some respects—many of the inmates are prisoners in the justice system, but the first film implies that at least some go to the cells voluntarily to earn rewards when they are released. And The Platform 2’s prequel status, if indeed that’s what this film is supposed to be, is baffling too: some kind of prisoners’ revolt was hinted at by the ending of The Platform but never mentioned as an event that had happened in the past. A possible alternative to consider is that there is more than one structure of cells, and the films take place simultaneously.

We may never find out. A third instalment in the Platform series seems unlikely given the poor reception of this one, and that may be for the best. Any film with such a fanciful premise as these two needs some kind of rational narrative and metaphorical structure—some discipline, in fact—to keep it from falling apart, which is exactly what has happened here. Still, even if a lot of The Platform 2 makes no sense, the sense it does make—generally on a moment-to-moment, scene-by-scene basis rather than across the film as a whole—it often makes powerfully.

SPAIN | 2024 | 101 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | SPANISH

Cast & Crew

director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia.
writers: David Desola, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, Egoitz Moreno & Pedro Rivero.
starring: Milena Smit, Hovik Keuchkerian, Natalia Tena, Óscar Jaenada, Zorion Eguileor & Bastien Ughetto.