The Platform(2019)
The film tells the story of a sub a vertical prison where platforms with food descend from level 1 all the way down to the hundreds of levels, and the underfed prisoners begin to descend into cannibalism.
Main Characters:
Goreng: “Anti-Utopian” citizens, voluntarily imprisoned with the promise of increased social mobility upon release.
Trimagasi: Prisoner, held in a vertical cell, a cellmate of Goreng.
Story Development:
The story is set in the future, in a not-too-distant “anti-utopian” society. Here there is a mysterious prison called the Prison Pit. The Prison Pit is a vertically sealed prison, with two people living on each floor, for a total of 333 floors. On the top floor of the prison, there is a team of top chefs. Every day, the chefs create a large table of rich dishes, some of which are based on the favourite foods of the people in the prison. The main character is on the 48th floor, on the same level as a middle-aged man whose mantra is “obvious”. The most peculiar thing about the prison pit is that the whole structure is an underground floor that extends vertically from the surface to the ground.
Each level of the cell has the same structure, with a lift shaft in the middle for the lift to pass through, and is deep enough to reach the bottom. Each day, the team of chefs places the table on level 0. The table of sumptuous food then sinks down to the first level with the levitating table in the middle, and the first to enjoy the delicious and uncontaminated food is the first level, and so on, the further down the hierarchy, the less food is eaten, even turning into eating scraps, then eating the bones left by others, and finally nothing left. The hero, at first disdainful and somewhat pretentious about eating other people’s leftover food, casually takes an intact apple.
The prison also has an anti-theft mechanism, if someone tries to hoard food, even if they steal a piece of fruit, then the floor activates extremely hot or cold temperatures so that you have to throw away the food left behind. He signed up voluntarily to this prison because he wanted to quit smoking, and if he lasted six months, he would receive a certificate and each person could bring one thing into the prison, and he chose a book from Don Giovanni to bring into the prison. During this time, the hero also meets a woman who comes down from above, a woman who the old man says is looking for her son and will kill her roommate to increase her chances of meeting him, and follows the table down from the top in search of him, but so far has not been found. If the meal reached each level and each person ate only the portion of food that belonged to them, then everyone would have enough to eat. But this is only the ideal, because – by human greed – one is never satisfied in the face of desire. Those at the top would have more choice, they could choose the best food at will, and there would be more than enough to go around. Those at the bottom, on the other hand, are left to eat the leftovers of the top. What is even crueler is that if those at the top eat more or spoil the food at will. That would mean that there would not be enough food for those at the bottom.
The reason the old man ties up the man is that after a week, people are eventually unable to beat hunger and have to eat each other if they want to live. The old man has to cut off the flesh from the man’s thigh with the knife he carries in order for both of them to survive and prepare to eat it to relieve his hunger. Just as the old man strikes at the male lead, the woman who has come down to look for her son arrives on this floor. The woman has been searching for her child inside the prison and has been taking the food truck down to the bottom floor every month and thus has experienced various bottom killings. The woman takes out the old man cleanly and saves the hero. The male lead was one of the few people who had shown her kindness when she was in the upper levels and was helped by the woman. The woman cuts off the old man’s flesh and feeds him in order to keep him alive, and in this way the woman in turn teaches him to eat human flesh, and the hero survives on level 171.
After surviving the third month, the man reaches the 33rd floor, this time his cellmate is the woman who had interviewed him to come to prison. She came to the prison voluntarily because she was suffering from terminal cancer and thus wanted to be saved in the last days of her life. With the idea of spontaneous solidarity, she helps the next level to distribute the food and asks them not to eat too much of it each time with great pains, hoping to achieve a per capita distribution and thus break the plight of cannibalism in the prison, but no one listens.
It is time to exchange floors again, this time the hero arrives on floor 202, the interviewer hangs himself straight away and the hero wakes up with his whole face squared off. Again, in a situation where hunger is unbearable, the hero, abetted by a vision of the dead old man, still decides to betray his conscience and soul by going down and eating the interviewer to save himself from surviving. Coming to the fourth month, the hero’s cellmate this time is a Christian black man named Barahat. This time he is assigned to level 6, which already belongs to the real upper class within the prison. The black man tries to break the rules within the prison and he initially does so by using the help of the upper class and then climbing up to the upper level with a rope. But just as he was about to climb to the upper level, he was rewarded with a blow of human excrement from the upper levels, which nearly killed him.
Desperate, the two men ride the dining car all the way down, and are met with more and more horrific sights of cannibalism of the utmost horror. The deeper the lift descends, the closer the human hell gets ……
Eventually, though, they reached the bottom level, 333, and found an Asian girl who appeared to be the child the woman had been looking for, but the woman was looking for her son and there were no children under 16 in the prison. In the end they decide to give the girl the milk jelly, the black boy dies from blood loss and the hero eventually realises that the girl is in fact the very message being passed on to the administrator, so the hero decides to stay on the bottom of the next level on level 333 and the girl rushes up after the hovering table.
Character Development:
Goreng:
When he first arrived in prison, he disdained eating scraps and treated the prison with a God’s-eye view. Over time, he gradually compromises like his environment and begins to eat, even eventually eating human flesh. Eventually, he chooses to go down and distribute food in order to change the system, eager to change it all.
Analysis：
What each man who enters the prison pit brings with him represents him as a person, social attribute, profession or class. The hero starts out representing the intellectual theoretical school, on the liberal side, which corresponds to the reality pretty much of the middle class or intellectual middle class, well educated with some social status but not a top distributer. After being whipped by reality for a few rounds he rises to the 6th level becoming a decision maker and becomes a real surrendered revolutionary and social practitioner.
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Pride & Prejudice (2005)
The film tells the story of the love and choice of spouses of the five Elizabeth Bennet sisters, the daughters of a country squire in early 19th century England.
Main Characters:
Elizabeth Bennett： The second lady of the Bennett family is extremely assertive in many matters and does not succumb to worldly ideas.
Mr. Darcy：A large landowner in Derbyshire, England. He was a close friend of Mr. Bingley’s, handsome in appearance and not good with people, thus often causing strangers to misunderstand him as cold and arrogant.
Charles Bentley：Single, well-to-do gentleman, close friend of Mr. Darcy, lively and easy-going, but impressionable.
Jane Bennett： The oldest of the Bennett sisters, and admittedly the prettiest, and gentle and understanding, she believed in the goodness of human nature and looked on all things for the good.
George Wickham： A young soldier and childhood friend of Mr. Darcy. A debauched man, he spreads rumours of slander against Mr Darcy to get back at him and prejudice Elizabeth against him.
Story Development:
When the rich young bachelor rented a nearby estate, the Bennett family, who had five daughters, were thrilled to learn the news. Although Mrs Bennet had already begun planning which daughter to marry the bachelor, her husband suggested that Charles Bentley might not like it. But it was not long before Mr Bennet was persuaded by his wife to make an official visit to the estate.
At the ball, the Bennetts’ daughters met Mr Charles Bentley. Also present at the ball is his aristocratic friend, Mr Darcy, who scorns Mrs Bennet’s behaviour and snubs her daughters. Elizabeth, the liveliest and brightest in the family, overhears Mr Darcy commenting very condescendingly on local society and refusing to be introduced to her, and Elizabeth becomes prejudiced against him, despite his handsomeness and wealth.
One day Jane went to see Charles’s siblings in the rain and fell ill with a bad cold and had to stay at the estate. Elizabeth walked for a long time to visit and look after her sister. When she arrived she was in a terrible state and Charles’s sister spoke to her at length. During the time Elizabeth was looking after her sister, Mr Darcy was paying him a lot of attention and Charles’s sister became very jealous and lost her temper. She sabotages Darcy’s affection for Elizabeth, but without success. But what stands in their way is Darcy’s hatred of Elizabeth’s vulgar and calculating mother.
In the meantime, a priest came to visit, a cousin of one of the Bennet sisters, and it was in order that he should inherit Mr Bennet’s estate. The very conceited vicar spoke several times of the rich and arrogant Mr Darcy’s aunt, and as she urged the vicar to marry, he asked Elizabeth to marry him, who refused. When he is rejected, the vicar is not ashamed to propose again, but eventually fails and marries Elizabeth’s best friend.
Shortly after the ball, Charles and his sisters suddenly left the estate for London. Elizabeth is convinced that his sisters do not think Jane is good enough for Charles and prevent Charles from marrying her. Jane outwardly accepts the break in the relationship with equanimity, but soon goes to London to visit her aunt, hoping to meet Charles there. When Elizabeth rejoins Jane, Elizabeth believes that Darcy has deliberately kept Charles from knowing that Jane is in London.
Elizabeth meets up with Darcy again and Darcy is once again drawn to him. His condescending proposal to Elizabeth is rejected and he is condemned for the unfairness of his treatment of Jane. Darcy listens to her accusations in silence and writes a letter to Elizabeth the next day. Although this letter remains arrogant, Elizabeth’s dislike for Mr Darcy is much dispelled and she begins to see Darcy’s character. To add to Elizabeth’s sorrow, she falls in love with Darcy.
Shortly afterwards, Darcy and Charles return to the estate and Charles is engaged to Jane, and the Bennetts are filled with joy. Darcy’s haughty aunt is furious when she hears of this and comes to Elizabeth’s house to tell her to give up Darcy. Elizabeth, however, coldly tells her to mind her own business.
Darcy proposes again, this time in a humble manner, and Elizabeth readily accepts.
Character Development:
Elizabeth Bennett：She has a serious prejudice against Darcy at first, and when Mr Darcy asks her to marry him, she refuses Darcy, insisting on her own views. Later the misunderstanding is resolved and she gradually develops a liking for Mr. Darcy.
Mr. Darcy：Darcy goes from being arrogant at first and looking down on Mrs. Bennet’s behaviour to falling in love with Elizabeth later on and becoming humble and decent.
Analysis：
The actors have done their homework on this point. Whether it’s Elizabeth’s initial affection for Darcy, or the sudden change to full-on sarcasm, or the slightest shift in emotion about love, we see the seriousness of the emotions shown by the actors. The main theme of the film is to express what kind of gesture we are looking for in love. Elizabeth, for example, wants a love and marriage that is full of spiritual happiness.
Her friend, on the other hand, chooses a stable marriage, a relationship with nothing, but a life of plenty.