Art: Mirror of Thy Society
Selecting a single piece of art among the pool of my favourite movies, shows, books, and paintings is not an easy task. Rather than being in a position of a mother who is forced to choose her favourite child, I am going with the reverse chronological order to write about the latest addition in my pool of favourites, the one my memory is still fresh with.
The Platform is a 2019 Spanish science fiction-thriller movie. It is based on a vertical self-managed prison system. Each vertical platform is shared by two cellmates. Every month, prisoners are reassigned random levels of platforms and random platform mates. A table full of food is delivered from top-level to bottom every day, stopping at each level for a specified time. Prisoners can eat as much as they can while the table is at their platform before the leftovers go down, but are not allowed to hoard any food.
The prisoners at upper levels, in never-ending human greediness over-consume and over-indulge in the food. They eat more than required, and waste more than they eat, without any consideration of the prisoners below them.
Prisoners on lower levels, who get no food at all, reveal the evilest face of humanity. To survive, they indulge in the most heinous crimes, not limited to killing and eating their fellow prisoners.
Goreng, the movie’s main character, is a new member of the system and is disappointed and disgusted with it. He wants a more just system, the one in which everyone takes their fair share of food so every prisoner gets it. To convince everyone is not an easy task.
Prisoners at the upper level are the beneficiary of this unfair system, hence they are too busy in gluttony that the thought of them ending on lower levels next month does not cross their minds.
The prisoners on the middle level have absorbed and have become part of the system. They have accepted their fates, and they even discourage Goreng from trying as they consider his attempts to be futile. For them, the system is an eternal reality. They cannot comprehend a just system of surviving in the vertical prison.
Even if prisoners on a lower level try their best to change the system, they cannot do anything at all being the most vulnerable segment, without any power over prisoners above them.
The hierarchy of our current capitalist system has been beautifully depicted in the film. Despite having enough resources for everyone, 10.7% of the population suffered from chronic undernourishment in 2016, according to the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization.
On one extreme, there are 2153 billionaires in the world (Wikipedia), and on the other end, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. (UNICEF)
This inspires me to strive for a more just economic system, just like Goreng, or if that is a far-fetched dream, make damn sure to reach upper levels of the socio-economic ladder and maintain that. We cannot help others without helping ourselves. Just like the most vulnerable prisoners of The Platform.
