The Platform 2 answers many questions, rather than asking them for the audience one more time, and leaves a mystery within it as its precursor did. This is one of those dystopian films created in the elaboration of a pit where humans survive through fighting by winning social solidarity in a vertical prison system.
Perhaps one of the questions left to dangle in the balance at the end of The Platform 2 would be: What about the war between the loyalists and the barbarians? Finally, this nasty war kills almost everybody, and it is to that point of utter destruction, stark, blank, desolate, and wrecked that protagonist Perempuan comes to the end with one final, redemptive choice.
The resolution, though haunting, tells society something about deeper issues of sacrifice and redemption underlying those themes. The conclusion of The Platform 2 mirrors the conclusion of the loyalist vs. barbarians war and what this has all led to for Perempuan's decision.
Disclaimer: The Platform 2 (2024) spoilers ahead! Reader discretion is advised.
The loyalists vs. barbarians on The Platform 2 has no winners
The central idea of The Platform 2 is the war between the loyalists and the barbarians. Under Dagin Babi's leadership, loyalists strictly follow the law of solidarity: they eat only the assigned food during the interview before entering the pit and make sure others do it, too.
Meanwhile, the barbarians, desperate, pay no mind to such social conventions and gobble down whatever food they can get their hands on to exist themselves. This peaking battle between the two parties is such that Perempuan, who already felt sympathy for the loyalists, now witnesses the horrors of the pit.
Indeed, Screen Rant believes that Perempuan's redemption arc will kick off when she drops her dogmatic loyalty and takes up with the cannibals. Yet this does not come without conflict inside.
Perempuan refuses to perform even cannibalism, almost symbolizing her ground in the middle: unwillingness to turn into a monster yet unwillingness to blindly attach oneself to immature, narrow-minded loyalty.
Read more: The real-life cannibal Ed Gein and his lore
At the same time, however, fidelity to the rule of law proves to be the downfall of the loyalists, while cutthroat tactics by the barbarians lead to a bloodily, horrifyingly devastating conflict. Very few are left at its end.
The system has created a cycle where no group truly emerges victorious—solidarity collapses, and the individuals in the pit are reduced to mere tools in the hands of the Authority, as seen on The Platform 2.
This bleak presentation parallels what director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia has said in an interview with Collider, commenting on how the pit was to be used only for observing how prisoners would behave under extreme conditions and not as a tool to foster cooperation among imprisoned people.
Perempuan's sacrifice on The Platform 2 and the ascension of the child
In the last moments of The Platform 2, Perempuan is presented with her most fateful decision. Having passed through one of the most horrific wars and witnessed a great number of fellow prisoners die in the pit, she is now confronted with a dilemma,
Either she has to save herself from the pit or rescue the child on the 333rd floor who would have to be buried. As such, this scene reflects the climactic decision Goreng makes in The Platform 2, where he finally decides to send a child up to the surface, believing in its innocence and purity as a probable message to the world above.
In the end, she has to stay with the child and shield him from dying to keep him from withering away. This realization occurs at a time when she comprehends that salvation cannot be achieved by running away from herself but instead in the very fact that she saves the child from death.
However, visions of other inmates include Zamiatin himself, in preparation for sending the child up to the surface instructs her to send the child up from The Platform 2.
Such figures, like her, are those who have redeemed themselves but are not good enough to return to the surface. In this ending, Perempuan allows herself to be taken by letting the child up and giving up on her own life as one final act of redemption.
The act allows her to free herself from the guilt that consumes her and accept that her salvation comes at the cost of her sacrifice. Ascendence represents hope: his innocence plays a role in making a better world.
However, the mid-credits sequence continues the cycle of oppression. Other children are forced further down the pit in what seems to be a reminder that the Authority is still conducting its experiments and does not care who is inside the machine.
This is disturbingly told in a revelation that while the pit may offer moments of redemption, the system is fundamentally corrupt, and the Authority uses even the most innocent lives like pawns in their greater scheme.
What was the true purpose of the pit on The Platform 2?
One of the key mysteries of The Platform 2, however, is the Authority's actual purpose in holding this pit. According to Screen Rant and Digital Spy, the Authority's social experiment is to observe human behavior when placed in the most desperate circumstances possible.
They intend not to facilitate solidarity but to study what brings it about. The prisoners are nothing more than subjects in a savage experiment, and even the children who represent purity and innocence are used for this very purpose of bizarre experiments.
Not nearly as subtle as being hinted at in the movie, there are millions of pits worldwide, each operating with the same principles. The global network of vertical prisons suggests a more comprehensive dystopian reality that extends beyond the pit and into Authority control.
Read more: What is the latest on Lyle and Erik Menendez's prison sentence?
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The Platform 2 can be streamed on Netflix.
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