THE PLATFORM : Monday 23rd March 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which the first I review as below is 'The Platform', which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Monday 23rd March.

'THE PLATFORM' is a Spanish (over dubbed into English) Sci-Fi horror offering Directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September 2019, where it won the People's Choice Award in the Midnight Madness category, has garnered generally positive Press and has collected nine award wins and a further fourteen nominations from across the festivals and awards circuit. It is streaming now on Netflix.

Here Goreng (Ivan Massague) wakes up in a concrete cell with the number 48 etched on the wall. His fellow cellmate, named Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), explains that they are in a high rise tower prison with two inmates per level. Inmates are able to talk to each other through a large rectangular hole in the centre of every level but there is very little chance of climbing up or down between levels for fear of plummeting down into seemingly infinite void. Food is delivered via a platform which travels from the top level (Level 1) right down to the bottom level (assumed to be Level 250) through that large rectangular hole in the floor/ceiling, and is prepared by a team of gourmet chefs on Level 0. The platform is initially laden with all manner of culinary delights and enough to feed all inmates (if they were to take a reasonable portion), but of course those on the lower levels can only eat what those at the top leave them, and when the food is gone, it's gone. The platform comes to rest on each level for just a few minutes at a time, once a day. The top fifty levels are deemed to be the best off in terms of the food source, and anything below that the pickings are slim to non existent.

Each room is rapidly heated to such a temperature to burn the skin off your bones or cooled to freeze you to the spot if prisoners attempt to hoard food after the platform has left their level. Every month, the prisoners are assigned to a new level by being gassed at night and waking the next day to discover if they risen or fallen through the levels. Each prisoner was also permitted to bring one item in with them to give them some connection to the outside world - Goreng chose a copy of Don Quixote, Trimagasi a self-sharpening knife called the Samurai Plus - the more you use it the sharper it gets. As the month wears on the pair of inmates tell each other why they are in the prison (referred to as The Pit) - Goreng volunteered to spend six months in the Pit to quit smoking and to come out at the back end with a Diploma qualification, and Trimagasi is serving a twelve month sentence for involuntary manslaughter.

As the months progress, Goreng moves from Level 48 to Level 171 where the platform is completely devoid of any food when it arrives. He wakes up gagged and bound to the bed with Trimagasi saying that after the eighth day when Goreng is purged, he will begin to eat him, a little bit at time in order to sustain himself. As Trimagasi is using his Samurai Plus knife to cut flesh from Goreng's leg, Miharu (Alexandra Masangkay) descends from the upper levels on the platform and thwarts the attacker, freeing Goreng who then kills Trimagasi using his own knife. Miharu we learn earlier descends the platform every month in search of her separated young son.

The next month Goreng wakes on Level 33 with a new cellmate, and after that Level 202 with Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan) who ultimately hanged herself so that Goreng could eat her flesh in death rather than in life, in order to sustain himself. The next month he wakes up on Level 6 with Baharat (Emilio Buale Coka). They convince each other to descend on the platform and 'persuade' the other inmates to ration the food so that everyone down through the levels can eat. What follows turns into a blood bath as Goreng and Baharat fend off those unwilling to take rations and try to eat more. Goreng has estimated 250 levels but he is unsure if there are more. By the time they have reached Level 333, the platform has just kept on descending through the levels without stopping when no one is left alive. They get off discovering a little girl cowering under a bed, but then the platform descends further leaving them stranded. The next day, Goreng and the girl jump onto the platform as it descends further down to Level 350 and comes to a final halt in a black cavernous space. Goreng gets off weakened by the injuries he sustained when fending off others during his descent and Baharat died from his injuries, leaving the girl to ascend alone through the levels as a message of defiance to the Chefs on the uppermost level.

'The Platform' is an alternative version of 1997's 'Cube', 2013's 'Snowpiercer' and 2015's 'High Rise' films just set in a super tower prison where the lucky ones in this instance get to chow down on chef prepared meals once a day to their hearts and stomachs content, and those less fortunate get to go hungry, starve to death or die by means most foul. It's a film about the disconnect between the haves and the have nots, and the lengths that humans will go to to survive or simply succumb to their circumstances. Topics covered here also include the effects of starvation, cannibalisation, isolation, madness, extreme violence, friends and enemies and perhaps most pointedly a reflection on todays society - even more present in these uncertain times when the world is gripped by a pandemic. The ending when it comes, is a let down however, and is never really fleshed out to its natural or logical conclusion. For its stark minimalist setting the film is well realised, the performances of the principle cast stands up well enough, the storyline is convincing but we have seen it numerous times before albeit packaged differently, and the closing sequence leaves you feeling short changed.

'The Platform' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, out of a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-