Platform is about young performers (musicians and dancers) in a small town who experiences cultural, social, economic changes of China. The main characters are four friends, and their co-workers, girlfriends who are the members of the Peasant Culture Group. Their job is to move around from town to town by bus and showing their performances in praise of Chairman Mao’s great establishments and to celebrate the revolutionary work.
However, China soon begins to move toward contemporary movement through open door policy, free market, and cultural reforms. The peasant cultural group also needs to follow the development by transforming their music, dance, performance, fashion styles, and privatization of the troupe. Some of members choose to stay in Fenyang where they born and grow up, while some of them leave their hometown to find out better place for better chance.
Even though Fenyang is a very small town, there's a cultural reform movement such as talking about birth control and groups of people walk around the street shouting "One child is enough!." To remain as a member of cultural team, they try to adopt westernized cultures and listen to pop songs, performs westernized dance, and play electric guitars. They change their styles like perm hair, new bellbottom pants and draw eyebrows for someone who they like.
They struggle to get away from the past but finally return to the reality. For them, the gaps between different generations and cultural changes are hard to follow up easily. The most impressive scene is Zhong Pin's dance to music alone in her small room after giving up her dream and love. Her soft, delicate movement is beautiful but somewhat pitiful. Her movement is like farewell to her lover and also farewell to the past - revolutionary movement.
I agree with the author's comment about the "struggle to get away from the past." I remember the scene when the main character sang a song about having 7 or 8 wives and a bunch of kids, but got scolded by the teacher. His reaction was one of defiance, that he sings whatever he wants to. This rebellious nature seems to be a consistent theme throughout the movie and the students of this time era. They seem to like everything that's new, like the flamenco dance and perm from Spain. To me it seems that these kids are just in their stage of rebellion and as a result desires new things. Perhaps these kids are the key source to bringing about new modern culture as they chase after all things new and different, while rejecting old traditions and culture.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the strongest themes in this film is the idea that the students only return to normalcy after years of rebellion and efforts towards revolution. Despite these efforts to leave tradition behind and to not repeat the lives of their parents, the last scene shows these efforts to be futile.
ReplyDeleteI think it's horrible that the students have to resort back to their previous lifestyles are living such an open minded and free spirited lifestyle. However,there is a degree of truth,where it shows that no matter how hard one tries to be obscure/different, they all end up the same in the end. This is in relation to all the modern day hippies/ hipsters that act outside of normal realms,but later in life they will get sucked into the regular habituals of everyday life.(some won't though)
ReplyDeleteWhile i was watching 'Platform', i thought the young generations would go to urban city and become successful as a result of accepting new modern culture. They enjoyed flamenco dance, played electronic guitars with new styles of songs, bell bottom pants, and hair perm. It seemed like they're ready to accept and lead the new modern culture so i thought they would become the famous modern performers in the end. However, in the end of scene, their lives were just like the lives of their parents. They struggled to get away from the traditions but failed. Maybe they're too afraid to accept the sudden cultural changes, so they chose the same lives of their parents that seemed something safe, normal for them.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was almost ironic how the film such coming of age type of movie. There were all these changes in music, fashion, performing arts, and western interest and ideas. I thought the most eye popping was the birth control propaganda. It really stood out for some reason. Anyhow the film goes through all these phases of new culture acceptances and yet some how the characters were unable to keep up with it and eventually led them to live out an repetitive old lifestyle. It's like the film made a full circle.
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