Platform 2: We explain the end of the Netflix movie

Warning, spoilers. The following paragraphs show plot elements from the movie “Platform 2”.

Platform 2 is available October 4 on Netflix. Platform 2 is a dystopian thriller that follows Platform, one of the most watched non-English films of all time on Netflix.

Released in 2020, in total lockdown during the global pandemic, La Plateforme has generated many reactions among subscribers who have been fascinated by this thriller. Remember, Galder Gaztelu-Urutia’s film tells the story of Goreng (Ivan Massagüey), a man who voluntarily joins a tower prison to climb the social ladder.

He will do anything to know that the tile that moves the food from floor to floor, a system that favors the first served and starves the last. But other inmates are also a hindrance to consider.

Not recommended for under 18s, this Cube and Snowpiercer feature film has generated a lot of debate and theories due to its mysterious ending. And La Plateforme 2 provides as many answers as it does questions.

What does “La Plateforme 2” say?

In Platform 2 we find the prison tower and the “pit” through which a platform filled with food for the prisoners passes. We quickly learn that the law governs the lives of the prisoners, namely that they must eat only the food they were asked to eat during their interview before entering the prison, under penalty of reprisal.

This rule, more or less respected, was established for the common good, so that each prisoner could eat. Some choose to follow the movement that we feel led by leaders or guides, while others choose to selfishly survive.

It is in this context that we follow the new prisoners who are Perempuan (Milena Smith) and Zamyatin (Hovik Keuchkerian). Cold at first, they eventually grow closer and establish a relationship of trust and friendship, which unfortunately ends tragically with the death of Zamyatin, who can no longer withstand the pressure of the law.

Perempuan then decides to lead a rebellion against the Blessed Ones and their disciples, with the help of another fellow prisoner, led by Natalia Tena, who suffered a forced amputation and saw her friend tortured and killed. But Perempuan will also lose this new ally while descending from the platform in search of the precious item.

New allegories, answers and questions…

During the skirmishes, attacks and murders, Perempuan searches for and finishes the work, Francisco de Goya’s “Dog”, from the series of “Black Drawings”, painted directly by the artist on its walls between 1819 and 1823.

This major art of Goya, then consumed by illness, confined to deafness and isolated from the outside world, represented his closed state, but also his sadness at the social and political situation of the country at the time.

Thus, the feature film refers to Spanish art for its social allegory of the decay of humanity starving to death with this painting, as in the first Goreng film, which was Don QuixoteThe famous novel by Miguel de Cervantes.

Besides, Goya’s painting would be a way of escape for Perempuan with images of social satire, subversion of the established order and connection to class struggle. According to his former inmate, the leaders of La Fosse distribute the gas, a variant of sevoflurane, to put the prisoners to sleep and place them in different cells.

Swallowing a piece of Goya’s painting would allow him to appear dead when he was gassed, so he dumped the corpses collected by La Fosse staff from the prison tower. And this is exactly what happens!

We then discover a little more behind the scenes of the “pit” and its functioning thanks to the gesture of Perempuan, who then takes advantage of the situation to escape, not taking with him the child he finds in the cell. . And it is there that he goes to the end of the “pit” and finds other prisoners who explain to him that only the child can be saved. Doesn’t this remind you of anything?

The sequel is actually a prequel!

The same fate befell Goreng, the hero of the first film “Platform”, who saved Miharu’s little girl. And that’s what we see at the end of Platform 2, after a montage of several prisoners descending to the bottom of a prison tower with the children they’re trying to save.

Thus, we see the last scene of the first film with Goreng and the rest of what happens to him in this underworld of “the pit”. He discovers… Perempuan, who happens to be his former partner, who voluntarily entered this prison tower to overcome his guilt over the death of Goreng’s son.

And if Perempuan is already in this underworld, that means that Platform 2 is actually a prequel to Platform! And Milena Smith, Heroine’s translator, was completely shocked by this result, as she told us in an interview:

“I was really impressed that he and Goreng got together at the end. I wasn’t really sure about the story line at first. I had to make sure I knew all those details. And how it’s a prequel, you have to watch the movie a few times to really know all those details and have clear vision.”

So how did the idea for this prequel come about? By Pedro Rivero, one of the film’s co-writers, followed by other authors Galder Gaztelu-Urut, Egoic Moreno and David DeSola.

“When we made the first film, it was obviously a film that stood on its own.”Screenwriter and director Galder Gaztelu-Urutia explained, “We didn’t think there would be a sequel. But while working on the second one, we realized that the first one wasn’t fully understood without the second one. So now the two come together perfectly and enhance the platform world and create a complete experience.”.

The two films complement each other thanks to the two points of view of Goreng and Perempuan. In The Platform 2, we learn that before the events of The Platform, there were rules. “Perempuan is the one who revolutionizes these norms and leaves behind the completely anarchic world we find in the first film.”confirms the director.

What can we learn about the world of “La Plateforme”?

If the first film platform raised many questions and theories, the release of the second film – the prequel – will answer some questions, but raise new ones. What is the actual message of the movies? What does the presence of children in the “pit” mean? Is their salvation a step toward redemption, a future generation that will improve, welcome in purgatory?

Just like in the first feature film, director Galder Gaztelu-Urutia does not give an ambiguous answer. “The film itself should not be taken too seriously”he tells us “What matters is the conclusion that each viewer makes at the end of the film and the messages it creates, not that the film has a message.”

For him, La Plateforme is a way to put the world around us in an extravagant and satirical way and make society think about such questions: “What would you do if you were level 5? What would you do if you were level 205? How would you treat other level people?”

Comments collected by Megan Choquette on September 28, 2024.

The movie “Platform 2” is available on Netflix.