Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform (El Hoyo) and Philosophy

Likely aided by worldwide quarantine, the popular Spanish sci-fi/horror movie is making big waves in pop culture. While many people are latching onto the film’s obvious criticisms of capitalism and social theories like the crabs in a bucket, there are deeper philosophical questions the film raises and multiple disciplines of thought that it explores. The primary philosophical principles are hedonism and altruism, and these philosophies are so deeply entwined that they are often expressed in a philosophical thought-experiment called The Prisoner’s Dilemma.

In The Prisoner’s Dilemma, two criminal partners are separated from each other in isolated interrogation rooms, and each is given the same choice to make: rat out the partner or remain silent. If both remain silent, they will each receive a smaller punishment. If both rat each other out, they will each receive a harsher punishment. But if a prisoner rats on the other without being ratted on himself, he gets off clean while the other takes the fall.

So how does The Prisoner’s Dilemma and its foundational philosophies of hedonism and altruism play out in The Platform?

To Thine Own Self Be True

One of the two main philosophies the film touches on is that of hedonism. Focused primarily on cultivating one’s own pleasure and avoiding pain for the self, hedonism weaves its way across a large portion of the film. Its primary adherent is Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), Goreng’s (Ivan Massagué)first cellmate, and it is through his hedonistic perspective that we first learn the nature of the vertical prison. As such, our understanding (and Goreng’s) is colored heavily by this philosophy. Trimagasi’s totem, a self-sharpening kitchen knife, is similarly a reflection of this philosophy. He admits to not needing the knife, but he wants it, almost lusting after it, because of the happiness it may bring him (or the pain he may avoid: “What if my life sucks because my knives are not sharp — if purchasing a Samurai Max might make my life whole?”). And his explanation of his crime is similarly self-centered, writing off the man he killed as an illegal immigrant who “shouldn’t even have been there.”

Given Goreng’s relatively high position at the start of the film, Trimagasi’s hedonism actually feels somewhat justified. He gorges himself on the scraps and disdains “the ones above” for their selfishness and greed. Trimagasi’s gorging appears to be a form of resistance or retaliation against the abuse from those above. There is an appeal to this sense of self-preservation, and Trimagasi can even be seen as heroic for taking a stand against an unfair system in which he has little control. But the seeds of hypocrisy have been planted, though it’s not until the duo are repositioned that the roots take hold.

When their relative good fortune runs out by finding themselves relocated to Level 171, Trimagasi demonstrates the true weakness of the hedonist philosophy: its asymmetrical nature. When they are living well, Trimagasi and Goreng appear to be in similar circumstances, but what’s made clear on Level 171 is that Trimagasi has been manipulating the situation to his advantage.

He admits to Goreng — only when he has him sufficiently restrained — that he cannot trust his cellmate and that he will survive over Goreng no matter the cost. It is this lack of trust that is the Achilles’ heel of the hedonist philosophy: if everyone is only putting their own interests before anyone else’s, it becomes impossible to trust anyone’s advice because they will only use it to benefit themselves. Even seemingly altruistic deeds would only be performed in service to the performer’s own ends. Public services like education, policing, or regulation lose their legitimacy because no trust is possible.

So while hedonism literally works for the individual, it’s clear from Trimagasi’s behavior (and later the behavior of many of the other cellmates) that as a moral framework, it has some fundamental flaws.

A Bleeding Heart

If Trimagasi is the film’s advocate for hedonism and the self, Imoguiri (Antonia San Juan) is the advocate for altruism. And just as Trimagasi exemplifies both the virtues and vices of his moral philosophy, so does Imoguiri. Even as she explains the number of prisoners whose totems are various forms of weapons, Imoguiri reveals her totem to be her dog, Ramesses II. She cares so much for all life, even nonhuman life, that she willingly offers herself to the prison to bring order to the chaos as some kind of Mother Teresea figure. She is so devoted to sacrificing herself to others that she literally kills herself so that Goreng can eat from her corpse after they relocate to Level 202.

Imoguiri’s altruism is not without its own faults, though. She is an idealist who — almost out of touch with reality — is unwilling to inflict even the slightest amount of discomfort onto another person to advance her cause. As such, she becomes a joke to those around her, an impotent bystander to be mocked and dismissed by the other prisoners. Like a passive mother unwilling to discipline her child (“Gentlemen, please, it has been 15 days and I’m begging you to follow my instructions this time”) she is trampled by the wills of those around her because she will not defend her beliefs.

After her death, she joins Trimagasi inside Goreng, but as a much weaker manifestation guiding his growth.

Metamorphosis and The Third Path

After the passing of his second mentor, Goreng meets the zealot Baharat (Emilio Buale). This encounter is different from those before in that Goreng enlists Baharat’s aid rather than being subjected to his views. Something has changed, and Goreng is taking action for himself.

After the pair encounter Baharat’s master (Eric Goode), Goreng learns to blend Trimagasi’s willfullness to act with Imoguiri’s love for others to fight back against the system that truly imprisons them all.

In this transformation, Goreng’s imitation of Nietzsche’s archetypes of metamorphosis becomes clear. The Three Metamorphoses refer to inner transformations a person must undergo before being fully able to to live. Nietzsche named the stages the camel, lion, and child, and they represent a linear model for transitioning from ignorance to enlightenment (though it may seem counter-intuitive to have the “child” symbolize the end of the process). The process begins with being a slave (or prisoner) to a herd morality and ends with an individual becoming truly free.

Until meeting Baharat’s master, Goreng has demonstrated the first stage of the camel by piling the problems of the prison upon himself. Upon first waking, he immediately sought to organize the different levels and became ensnared in Miharu’s (Alexandra Masangkay) mission to find her child, even falling prey to traditional stereotypes that assumed her womanhood made her vulnerable. Imoguiri’s altruism resonated with Goreng precisely because he was in the stage of being a camel, heaping the burden of morality upon himself.

Baharat’s master provides Goreng the freedom to move to the second stage: the lion. With Baharat’s help, Goreng moves through the prison destroying the order of this world. When he cannot destroy it peacefully, he destroys it actively with a strike from his cudgel (speak softly and carry a big stick?). And destruction serves him well until he reaches the end of the prison. Here, he finds something he cannot (or will not) destroy. Fittingly, it signifies his transformation to Nietzsche’s final stage: the child.

It comes as no coincidence that Goreng’s final metamorphosis is triggered by his vision of a child within the prison, something that has been deemed an impossible fantasy. Nietzsche presumed this transformation to be just as unlikely to find, few people successfully transform into the final stage of the child, a figure capable of creating a new world with new rules and morals. The difficulty of this transformation likely explains some of the awkwardness of the ending. The final transformation (both for Goreng and the prison) is strongly hinted at, but not revealed. What matters is that the transformation has been achieved. While it may feel disappointing, it also mirrors the difficulty of trying to explain the reality of becoming the child to someone who has not started the journey or who has only become a camel.

So what does the film seem to say about morality and self? There is an obvious advocacy for Nietzsche’s transformation into the child, but what of something more practical? Hedonism is portrayed as selfish and cruel, altruism as foolish and weak. But Goreng’s imperative to take action feels inspired, a dynamic morality that seeks peaceful cooperation but punishes greed. You can check out what this looks like for yourself by playing The Evolution of Trust or by listening to Radiolab’s Tit for Tat.

What do you think about The Prisoner’s Dilemma and its application on our lives?

Other philosophical readings