The Platform 2

Summary

Coming in April 2024, The Platform 2 is a Spanish dystopian, science fiction thriller coming out in 2024 that serves as a prequel to the 2019 hit movie The Platform. Directed once more by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, this movie goes back to the grim vertical prison, the Vertical Self Management Center, also known by its inmates as The Pit. While the first film concentrated on Goreng and his descending ideological spiral through the prison levels, The Platform 2 shifts focus to a new central character – the origins of the abrasive dynamics of the Pit and the socio-political systems that sustain it are explored.

The new main character of this sequel is Perempuán, a woman suffering from bad conscience because of a car accident which in turn makes her go through the psychosomatic torments of the very young child of her fiancé. With the intentions of atonement, she willingly drops into the Pit with hope that she will undergo some sort of metamorphosis. She is placed on level 24 with a cellmate Zamiatin, a mathematician who has completely lost her sense of hope to the brutality and inhumanity of the prison after a long time.

Just like in the original, the overview of the prison’s adding features is: a suspended platform with gourmet meals descends daily through a tower of cells, each stockpiled with painstakingly prepared meals. From the top, inmates sequentially gorge themselves until the food supply runs out— or disappears— at the lower levels. Drastic inter inmate combat leads to chaotic survival from the bottom and starvation from the top. Flexible intra prison combat policies lead to random month wise reassignment to a new level which open new levels of potential every month with more blocks in the queue.

Now, The Platform 2 adds features and improves upon this system. A faction known as the Loyalists enforces the per inmate food custom rule. deviation from which brands a cellmate as a Barbarian becoming the label on radical counter-society scum. For anarcho- pacifists, this brings immeasurable violent consequences

Perempuán, as she settles into the new system breaks the first layer of oppression, gets to meet Sahabat, another inmate who isn’t shy in helping her comprehend the ruthless sociopolitical structure survive preserving the few Loyalists without getting corrupted. Their leader, Dagin Babi is bestexual, bloody, draconian with an additional unfaded cult leader paint who deems devotion to upholding subservience to food orders sacred. Quelling native violence through pre-emptive multilateral strikes on dissenters with systematic martial law for slash and arm tear on sight legion leaves no terminal through for dissenters.

Initially appearing cold, Zamiatin, Perempuán’s classmate, becomes progressively more revealing as he discloses his emotional struggles and his increasingly desperate need for meaning. His grasp of the system’s mathematics, combined with his emerging regard for Perempuán, creates a profoundly humane antidote to the system’s harshness, and prison dehumanization fuels sympathetic imagining for Perempuán. In a tragic act of humanity, he sacrifices himself to save her, convinced that from their agony, some small good could come.

In time, the conflict becomes unbearable. Perempuán is stuck in the middle of the fight between the Greeks and the Barbarians, but rather than fully identify with either side, she begins to subvert the very ideology of the prison. She learns that children, regarded as imaginary symbols of dizzying possibility within the prison, are not what they seem—in fact, they are puppets that the system has placed to distort the truth and lull the would-be rebels to sleep.

The film concludes in a striking echo to the original The Platform. Perempuán tries to take the platform with one of the children, looking for a way out or a contac to the world above, directly tying to the mystery left unsolved in the first installment. This conclusion emphasizes the central idea: hope is something that can be built, yet it contains the possibility of shattering cycles of oppression.

Cast & Crew

Milena Smit as Perempuán

Milena Smit delivers a raw, deeply emotional performance as a woman mourning the loss of her loved ones and seeking justice in a broken world. The center of the film is her change from passive bystander to active saboteur.

Hovik Keuchkerian as Zamiatin

Keuchkerian portrays melancholic mathematician who recalls his moral obligations with surprising gravity. His performance is soft-spoken yet Dans speaks volumes and adds profundity to the desolate Perempuán.

Natalia Tena as Sahabat

Tena is a survivor with invaluable knowledge of the prison’s inner workings, and she delivers striking dramatic warmth.

Óscar jaenada as Dagin Babi

Jaenada is brilliant as the deranged commander of the Loyalists. He turns the exaggerated devotion of this character into psychopathic order fanatic.

Iván Massagué as Goreng

Massagué bridges the two films by coming back for a short interval, which serves as an underlying link that connects the two films.

Zorion Eguileor as Trimagasi

His fleeting presence serves as a reminder of the violence and ideology in the Pit, as well as the chilling reality of the existence of such cycles.

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Writers: David Desola, Pedro Rivero, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, Egoitz Moreno

Cinematography: Jon Sangroniz
Editing: Haritz Zubillaga
Score: Aitor Etxebarria
Production: Basque Films
Distribution: Netflix

With an IMDb rating of 5.8/10, The Platform 2 has received mixed reception from audiences. The fans and critics seem to be engaged, although not fully appreciating the film. While some viewers appreciate the film for broadening the narrative scope and deepening the philosophical ideas, others criticize the film’s pacing and structural intricacies.

Positives:
Performances: Infusing the grim narrative with traces of humanity, Milena Smit and Hovik Keuchkerian were widely commended for their portrayals.
World-Building: The expansion of the Pit’s ideological systems and political factions provides fresh insight into the world introduced in The Platform.
Visual Design: The set and lighting design keep the film’s bleak and oppressive style while continuing to add new and symbolic elements from the first film.

Critiques:
Pacing: Certain filmgoers cited partes of the movie, particularly lengthy intellectual discussions on ethics and control, as dull or too philosophical.

Complexity: The addition of new factions, ideologies, and timelines can be overwhelming for casual viewers not familiar with the original.

Repetition: Some reviewers felt certain elements were overly repurposed; others defended that as part of the commentary on oppression cycles the film intends to show.

Conclusion

The Platform 2 strengthens its predecessor by offering a richer politically and emotionally charged narrative that further deepens the metaphor for vertical inequality. Through Perempuán’s struggle for redemption and defiance, the film not only plunges into the systemic cruelty’s aftermath but also delves into the myriad ways ideologies are wielded to control people in the name of order.

It may not appeal to all audiences, particularly those looking for a more straightforward or traditional narrative, but it is impossible to deny that the film is intellectually stimulating. It raises critical issues surrounding justice, control, sacrifice, and the urge to hope, in the midst of relentless darkness.

The Platform 2 is highly recommended for followers of dystopian films, social allegory, and psychological drama, offering a harrowing yet crucial exploration of the mechanisms of power and the struggles to escape them.

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