The Platform 2 (El hoyo 2, 2024) ‘Netflix’ Movie Review: The 2019 Spanish dystopian feature debut of director Glader Gatzelu Urrutia is the first installment of this science-fiction franchise that gained unwitting prescience when it landed on Netflix on 3rd March 2020. Smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, the story of prisoners stuck in a pait forced to do anything to survive turned out to be unfortunately too relatable for the people stuck inside their homes during the pandemic, struggling to keep their sanity intact as they were forced to adjust themselves to the new normal.
The first film’s conceit is a vertical prison with one cell per level. Two people per cell. One food platform and two minutes per day to feed from up to down—an endless nightmare trapped in The Pit. It is a movie where the plotting of the film could very easily bog down the potency of the premise, and rather, the central focus is on the messaging—the effects of capitalism. The top two inmates would be awarded a sumptuous bouquet, but it is debatable whether scraps would remain intact by the time the platform reaches the 150th floor. As one character in the movie says, if they rationed the food present on the platform, there would be enough food for everyone in the pit, but spontaneous solidarity is theoretically possible—practically, though it’s a pipe dream.
That philosophy is being explored in the sequel four years later. The movie doesn’t consider the massive gap in release time and dives right into it, which is not an ideal situation for any film viewer to dive into. It is doubly more difficult because the movie heavily implies in the beginning through the interaction between our protagonist Perempuan (Milena Smit), her cellmate Zamiatin (Hovik Keuchkerian), and the rest of the prisoners both residing above and below her – that the “hole” has a “law” in place.
A law whereby each cellmate would only gorge on the food they had requested before being admitted to the prison. But as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that only a few dissidents are enough for a law being enforced to either be broken or for that law actually to become doctrine. Both of these instances aren’t ideal conditions to survive in an environment that is already designed to break their residents mentally.
The fact that our protagonist’s name translates to “woman” should give you a hint about the cipher nature of the character itself. Thus, we see her ideologies shift as every month passes, and she finds herself with a new cellmate or with an older cellmate dying in the process. Each progression results in Perempuan joining and following a different doctrine as she and the viewers slowly learn about zealots occupying one floor led by a messianic figure with his team members described as “the anointed ones,” intent on ensuring the law is maintained.
Meanwhile, rebels accurately termed as barbarians want to be “free,” even though anarchy remains completely antithetical to an already brutalist-structured prison. And let’s not forget cannibalism was a significant point of inevitability in the first film. It became one of those choices our protagonist would be presented with via a character from the previous movie. Unlike that film, where the sharp pacing aided in the leaner nature of the storytelling and focus on a singular message, the world-building here, with its different rules and over-explanations of said rules and features, further muddles the narrative.
The in-media nature of the storytelling at the beginning helps raise interest but doesn’t aid in decoding the plot. As the movie enters its second act, newer elements are introduced within the narrative, dragging down to a confusing quicksand of the plot. Almost like its central character, the movie seems unable to hone in on a specific social message. It is determined to not just comment on capitalism but also on the inability of the solution that had been presented in the previous film and how it inevitably fails due to that theory becoming law. That law falls under the power of a singular figure, resulting in a pseudo-theological-based status quo. Even within a pacier edit, there are still a lot of ideas to tackle within 100 minutes by granting each idea sufficient real estate, which “The Platform 2” is unable to do.
You couple that with added callbacks to the first film that simultaneously crystallizes and muddies the film’s place in the timeline; a third act that not only acts as a mirror to the ending of the first film but somehow adds to the murky symbolism of “the child being the message ” as expressed within the first film. As a result, this film feels aimless—like the pit of the premise, it is doomed to repeat that nightmare.
The few changes in this sequel are visible via its filmmaking. While the directorial propensity to rely on close-up shots hasn’t changed much, the visual effects maintain that distinctive continuity and even elevate it in certain sequences. The reliance on gore and visceral action hampers the storytelling overall but does provide a dopamine high with some of its bloody set pieces.
There is some strong visual imagery, especially in the final twenty minutes, that almost resembles a minimalist painting, but that is countered at times with digital sludge over sickly primary coloration in other sequences. The performances, especially of Smit and Keuchkerian, provide the two emotional anchors to the film, even as Perempuan’s backstory is ineffective from an emotional standpoint.
“The Platform 2” at the end feels like a sequel intent on milking a highly potent idea for all that’s worth with its fair share of obvious symbolism. Still, the sequel is hampered by the apparent expositional world-building with its set of rules bogging the narrative and the pace down, resulting in a messy film. The solid central performance holds the fort until the tail end of the final act. Maybe watching these films back-to-back provides a more enjoyable experience, but it wouldn’t wash away the aftertaste of deja vu.
![The Eyes of My Mother [2016] : A Feather in the Cap of Horror Genre](https://www.highonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/14690874_1759948147605525_2522113398891958415_n-768x322.jpg)
