Warning: Major spoilers for The Platform 2 below!A famous painting not only underlines the main subtext of The Platform 2, it also plays a key role during the story. The ending of Netflix’s The Platform didn’t exactly set up a sequel and saw protagonist Goreng (Iván Massagué) descend into a dark void beneath the movie’s nightmarish prison. He may have succeeded in saving the life of a child, but the story heavily implies this entire sequence is just his dying thoughts. The Netflix sci-fi thriller itself felt like one giant metaphor, with the “Vertical Self-Management Center” being an obvious allegory for capitalism and the distribution of wealth.

The Platform 2 is headed by a new cast of characters (though some familiar faces also return) with Milena Smit’s artist Perempuan struggling to adapt to the hellish nature of the tower. It’s notable that the Platform 2’s ending is almost identical to the 2019 originals too, where Perempuan forsakes her chance to escape in favor of rescuing a young boy. To attempt her escape, Perempuan is seen eating a piece of Francisco Goya’s “The Dog,” one of the legendary painter’s most despairing works.

Related

The Platform 2 Timeline Twist Explained: When It’s Set & How It Connects To The Original Movie

The Platform 2 features a new batch of characters, but a key twist reframes the story and makes its link to the original even stronger.

Perempuan’s Poisoning Plan With The Drowning Dog Painting In The Platform 2 Explained

The Platform 2’s finale gets very subtextual

Perempuan’s journey in the sequel mirrors Goreng’s in many ways, including how she keeps earning new cellmates. Natalia Tena’s (Game of Thrones) character is the most important and informs Perempuan of her bold escape plan. At the end of every month, the prison moves all its residents to different levels, which requires rendering them unconscious with gas. Tena’s character states this is the moment they must act, and they have to make themselves appear dead so they’ll be carried out of the tower to potential freedom.

It’s not a very detailed plan for the simple reason that the residents know very little about how the Vertical Self-Management Center functions. Regardless, The Platform 2’s ending sees its heroine attempting to escape by swallowing a piece of Francisco Goya’s painting “The Dog.” Exactly why eating some of this painting makes her appear dead to the guards isn’t made clear, though something within the canvas appears to counteract the gas.

Still, the plan works to the extent that Perempuan wakes up during the prison’s reset, and sees that gravity within the tower has been disabled as prisoners are shuffled around. She is also attached to a pile of floating corpses, but instead of being taken outside as planned, the bodies are being moved to the pit beneath the prison.

The Real-Life Drowning Dog Painting & Its Meaning Explained

The Dog is one of Goya’s famed “Black Paintings”

The Platform 2 makes it clear that residents are allowed to take only one item with them into the Vertical Self-Management Center. Some choose weapons or books, but one new resident decides to bring Goya’s “The Dog” instead. “The Dog” depicts a dog who is trapped in some unidentified mass (possibly water or quicksand) and struggling to stay afloat as it looks hopefully toward the vast sky above. Of course, there is no help coming for the poor animal, and its struggle to survive is ultimately a hopeless one.

Goya painted “The Dog” (alongside many other pictures) towards the end of his life on the walls of his home, during a period when he was in poor health. These works are referred to as Goya’s “Black Paintings” and were never intended for public exhibition. Thus, it took decades for these pictures to get transferred to canvas, with some other works from this Goya collection including “Satan Devouring His Son” and “Heads in a Landscape.”

It’s not hard to see how the themes of “The Dog” connect to The Platform 2. Both involve fights for survival that are ultimately futile, against forces that are much bigger than their subjects. Perempuan herself is immediately taken with Goya’s picture when she first sees it, no doubt sympathizing with the dog’s plight while reflecting on her own.

How The Dog Painting Connects To Perempuan’s Tragic Backstory

The Platform 2 makes Perempuan’s connection to the painting quite personal

The Vertical Self-Management Center might be a prison of sorts, but not all its residents were sentenced to be there. Regular civilians are allowed to enter in exchange for certain benefits; for instance, Goreng agreed to serve six months in exchange for a diploma. It’s revealed during The Platform 2 that Perempuan was an artist in the real world, who once created a series of works on the topic of animal cruelty.

One of these pieces was a dog statue with razor-sharp claws, but after ignoring suggestions to put a safety barrier around it, her boyfriend’s son fell on the claws. Despite facing no legal issues over this, the intense guilt Perempuan felt about the boy’s accident pushed her to enter the tower to find the “time” to forgive herself.

The irony of having to consume a piece of art involving a dog as a way to free herself from a physical and mental prison hopefully isn’t lost on Perempuan. The Platform 2’s use of Goya’s “The Dog” seems to suggest that even if the struggle appears hopeless, that doesn’t mean people should surrender and give into despair either. By the end, Perempuan appears to have achieved the redemption she sought; or perhaps, like Goreng before her, it could all be a dying fantasy.

Source: Digital Spy

This sequel to the dystopian thriller expands the universe of The Platform, following survivors and new participants who now grapple with a revamped version of the vertical self-management system, now with more sinister and complex machinations.

Director

Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Release Date

October 4, 2024

Studio(s)

Netflix

Distributor(s)

Netflix

Cast

Hovik Keuchkerian , Milena Smit , Deborah Ayorinde , Callum Keith Rennie , Natalia Tena , Oscar Jaenada

Franchise(s)

The Platform

Expand