Bottom-up revolution and outside-in transformation——After watching "The Hunger Platform"
1. How does the revolution come about?
Watching The Hunger Platform reminded me of another earlier movie, Snowpiercer. Both "Snowpiercer" and "Platform Hunger" show the huge differences between different classes and the spontaneous resistance of the reformers. But the reformers in "Snowpiercer" came from the bottom up, charging forward from the last carriage. His companions and followers were people from the bottom class like him. Everyone wanted to change the status quo of being oppressed and maimed. After the leader of the revolution appeared, the people at the bottom swarmed to form a "spontaneous unity". That's right, the word also appeared in "The Hunger Platform", from the mouth of a terminally ill female administrator. She calls this brutally hellish structure the Vertical Self-Administration Center. She ideally believed that as long as everyone formed a "spontaneous unity" and only took what they needed, everyone would be able to eat and achieve "Communist autonomy." But she failed to recognize the reality: the food did not appear in front of everyone at the same time, but in a sequence. That is to say, this "vertical self-management center" is itself a paradox: it shapes different classes from the outside, giving them different orders to enjoy resources. But they delusionally imagine that people of different classes can realize the communist autonomy that can only be realized by the same class. This class order is fluid and changes from month to month. But people at the top enjoy abundant resources (food) and have no motivation and goals to reform; people at the bottom are eager for reform due to lack of resources, but have no qualifications to negotiate with those at the top. Because the layers are vertical, unlike in the Snowpiercer where the revolutionaries can step forward from the rear carriages.
2. The insurmountable class
I think the symbolism and metaphor between classes in The Hungering Platform is more poignant than Snowpiercer. Revolutions cannot be done from the bottom up because you can't overcome even the most basic of gravity. Only when the revolutionaries came to the upper level (the protagonist came to the sixth floor in the fifth month's rotation) did he begin to obtain the qualifications and minimum conditions for negotiating with different strata. Communist self-government is a beautiful ideal and a high-level human need. But the precondition for the emergence of advanced needs is the satisfaction of the basic needs: survival. Obviously, in this "vertical self-management center", the basic needs of the lower-level people cannot be met. When they hibernated hungry at the bottom for a month and were randomly sent to the upper-level, the only demand for their brains was food. Eat to live. What communist self-government is impossible to take into account. Communist self-government is based on the fact that everyone can have enough to eat, but it is clear that even when the hero and his black companions intervene violently to distribute food, the food does not reach the bottom (many in the bottom of the fight) has been killed, and the people on the first fifty floors have not been able to eat the food of the day). The cake is not big enough, but the delusion that people suppress basic needs to achieve high ideals is a kind of unrealistic utopianism, like Don Quixote, the character in the book that the hero brings here, is a ridiculous and pitiful The idealist, dreaming of the old dream of knighthood. A lot of people say that Don Quixote is a symbol and a metaphor for the hero, and I think it's a metaphor for not just the hero, but the entire institutional environment in which the hero lives, and the people who design, create, and keep the institution running. The construction of the whole system is a Don Quixote's fantasy.
3. Who is God?
Above the sixth floor, there is also the 0th floor, and above the 0th floor there is the real operator of the organization. The operator is a god-like existence for this regulatory agency. God is mentioned many times in the film. When the black roommate of the male protagonist wanted to climb up, the upper class once asked him, do you believe in God? Which god do you believe in? The black guy was a little stunned and said, of course, the only true God. Then he was pulled over by the upper class as he climbed upwards. This is not only a defense of the upper class for their own class, but also a punishment mechanism for black guys who answer wrong: the God you should believe in is the real management operator of this institution. If you trust him and obey him, you will have no intention of climbing, you will just stay where you are, enjoying or enduring random fate.
4. The result of the renovation
In "The Shawshank Redemption", the elderly librarian Brooks, after being released on parole, cannot adapt to life outside the prison and commits suicide for the rest of his life. He was locked up in prison for fifty years, and his fifty years of life were accompanied by the high walls of the prison. He was used to it, and he was "completely transformed". Prison walls, at first you hate it, then you get used to it, and finally you depend on it. This is the process of being transformed. Humans are animals adapted to the environment, and in "The Hunger Platform", the transformation of human beings by this environment can be seen everywhere. In the beginning, the old man’s roommate said to the male protagonist, “Talking makes me tired.” Later, when the male protagonist was assigned to the 171st floor and ate the old man’s flesh in order to survive, he said the same sentence, “Speaking makes me feel tired.” Exhausted." Language is a tool for thinking, without language, thinking cannot proceed. When speaking becomes a kind of consumption, it means that the social nature of human beings that distinguishes them from animals has disappeared: if thinking disappears, people will not think about change, but will only obey the survival law of this prison pit: the upper class enjoys the excess resources first, and the lower class Humans survive by killing and cannibalizing in the most primitive form, obeying and waiting for the next randomly assigned fate. This governing body is less a new attempt at a communist society than a way of animal domestication of humans.
Finally, let me say a little bit of personal thoughts. This film has a good idea and symbolism, but the actual operation is relatively rough. Many exciting pictures are more for the audience's visual service, resulting in a certain degree of ambiguity in the expression of the film. However, some characters are too heavy in nature, but lose their vividness and become rigid. Therefore, 4 stars is more suitable, but I really like this kind of film, so I gave it a five.
View more about The Platform reviews
