A citizen of a not-too-distant dystopia voluntarily incarcerates himself with the promise of increased social mobility upon release, but becomes so radicalized by his captivity that he will risk everything to ride a devilish dumbwaiter on a one-way ticket to protect a panna cotta.  To appreciate this trajectory, one needs to understand his prison: The Pit - a provocative permutation of a panopticon whereby hundreds of cells are vertically stacked, and hollowed out through the middle. Each day, a platform adorned with a decadent feast descends through the tower from its summit. It stops on each level for a few minutes, keeping those near the top well-fed, and those at the lower levels fighting for leftovers... if any remain. As further nightmarish nuances to the nature of this imprisonment emerge, THE PLATFORM steadily reveals itself as one of the most striking contributions to cinema's pantheon of science-fiction penitentiaries and a profound parable, demonstrative of the socio-political potency of genre cinema.