“Tied to the tight-rope walker,”
Facing every social commentary art is the dilemma between a propagandistic heavy-handedness and a satirical nihilism. It’s a form of high-wire walk: no filmmaking sorcery can help you offer a solution to the problem in question without selective priming and tight control over framing, while a failure in offering one would be tantamount to “a confirmation of fears” for the inability to transcend beyond “feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness” (Kael). Can you name one social commentary that commits neither of these sins? By abstracting the solution, pictures like this one had the courage to try, but in so doing they falls into the trap of confusion.
The latest victim that fell prey to this is Barbie, which is triumphant entertainment but impoverished parable. She’s not alone; here’s an earlier one from Spain, with a world and a central gimmick (a literal platform) that are just as intriguing. But it sinks too deep into its own anti-establishment messaging and philosophical posturing that we can’t really be sure what it’s trying to suggest. At one point, the lead character unambiguously endorsed the idea of spontaneous mass disobedience, while a little later we see him seizing the food and effectively imposing a monopoly of violence upon others, yet the film would’ve liked us to believe that our hero’s actions were consistent with his thoughts.
The plot also stumbles. The lead had to save a girl based on a dream he had (“girl is the message”?). We also weren’t told why or how we need the girl or the message to upset the established order; was she supposed to have an effect on something? Or to change or resolve anything? If so, why not show it? The oppressive administration was also a wasted potential; the film tried to convey its sacrosanct facelessness that it forgot to explore its workings entirely.
Also like Barbie, the action is here, and it induces discussions with all of its witty wordplays and psychosocial set pieces. But its value as a social commentary is nearly nonexistent, as much as that’s not completely its own fault.
★★½☆
Originally published at https://letterboxd.com/redmoonrising/film/the-platform/
