platform review

With its dreary, overcast, desolate interiors and natural soundscapes, part of the film’s exposition is communicated through a deliberately oppressive manner embedded in its foundation. The bleak, gray-shrouded skies and constant soundscapes of industry, urban discord, political assemblies, loudspeakers, construction, blaring radios, traffic, and dilapidated infrastructure add their own muted layer to every scene. Jia Zhangke makes use of all the tools in the medium to transcend an invasive environment that offers no relief from its despondent reminders.

Platform carries a deliberately fractured use of time coupled with an intensely reserved and subdued portrayal of standard living conditions under China’s Communist regime. It avoids embellishments and more closely resembles a fly-on-the-wall observation of moment-to-moment conversations, placing us in new scenarios connected through subtle mentions or gestures that signify the passing of time. Time inevitably wears them down, systematically shrinking the chasm and blurring the lines that had previously conveyed the dichotomy between the young and older generations, as the film sometimes disheartenedly displays.

While serving as a history lesson on China towards the end of the 20th century, Platform feels like a personal and impassioned arthouse film about the mores of adolescence under political strife. Due to its subdued style and density, it may take a few viewings to fully appreciate, but it is an extraordinary film.