A movie without a metaphor, what kind of title is that?
This is the first blog article in a series where instead of looking for some symbolic meaning behind a piece of media I’ll be trying to craft a literal story from it as if it were happening in our reality with our logic
Perhaps that wasn’t the best explanation but I guess it’s better to just show you than tell you so here goes nothing – A literal interpretation of “The platform”
So the main character goreng was just placed into the real world, it’s a cruel world; where social status is random and it’s much easier to descend than ascend up the social hierarchy.
The social hierarchy in this world is determined by the amount of resources you have.
Goreng’s biggest skill as a young adult is knowledge and we can see that from his ownership of the book Dom Quixote. He’s in college trying to get his degree and quit his smoking addiction.
Goreng was raised by a single father Trimagasie, who’s in the Middle Class of the society, and who pulled himself up from nothing. Trimagasie resents his son for having more opportunity than he had, and being ungrateful for them.
Trimagasie has a short relationship with Miharu, who’s struggling to get over the loss of her daughter. Trimagasie eventually loses his job and their social status drops. Their relationship becomes more strained until trimagasie dies of a heart attack.
Goreng wallows in the misery for awhile before eventually pulling himself up the social hierarchy. Goreng is becoming more like his father.
Goreng gets into a relationship with an older woman imoguiri. She’s a member of the government and goreng attempts to help her change some aspects of the world. Her policy changes ultimately have no effect on the rich and only affect a very small portion of the population.
Imoguiri ends up getting diagnosed with cancer and dies by euthanasia without proper medical care from the system – leaving goreng even more depressed as he enters into his thirties. Goreng also becomes more aware of the problems of overpopulation in the society. Goreng also becomes even more like his father and this displeases him.
After some time Goreng builds up a good solid career with his foundation from college and reaches the upper rungs of society – along with his friend baharat.
Baharat is a very religious political social climber and is trying to reach the highest office to make a change but fails to do so.
(Side note: One thing that I find interesting is that social climbing is indeed possible, perhaps through prostitution or money)
Since baharat can’t reach the top he despairs because he can’t make “real change” but he and Goreng decide to use what little power they have to make change.
They redistribute as much money/resources as they possibly can, and baharat gets old and dies in the process. They decided to send a political message to the upper class.
Goreng eventually adopts a little girl during this time, and they spread her tragic message to the upper class in the hopes that some change will be made.
But alas the message is lost on the upper class and the system continues on.
So there you have it; A movie without the metaphor. An article about taking a metaphor and making it literally occur in life without subtext.
All feedback is appreciated
Ricky J. Smith 