Vertical Prison With 2 Minutes to Eat, Leftovers Are Lowered to Another Cell

At a facility called the "Vertical Self-Management  Center", there’s a very particular prison. There are 333 floors with a hole in the middle and  food is lowered on a platform. Prisoners have two minutes to eat as much as possible before  the platform leaves to the next floor.

The lower they are, the fewer chances they have of eating  anything. If anyone tries to keep food for later, the administration will punish them. At the end  of each month, prisoners are shuffled and sent to different floors.

Each prisoner is also allowed  to come with one object of their choice. Somewhere hidden in this building, kids are playing on a  strange pyramid. Before being sent to their cells, the prisoners are interviewed and asked for their  favorite dish, which will be added to the food selection on the platform.

Zamiatin asks for pizza  and explains he may get nervous if he doesn’t get it every day, like the time he set his parents’  house on fire while they were asleep. However the interviewer knows Zamiatin immediately regretted  starting the fire with his own autobiography and put it off. Meanwhile Perempuan says her favorite  food is the ham croquettes his ex used to make for her and that she’s joining the facility because  she needs time to forget what she did.

Eventually Zamiatin and Perempuan end up on level 24. When  the Zamiatin checks the platform for his pizza, he’s devastated to see people have taken bites  and stolen the toppings. Arguments coming from above reveal that the prisoners from level 21 ate  food that weren’t theirs.

Furious, Zamiatin grabs some chicken and is about to bite it, but he’s  interrupted by Robespierre and his cellmate from level 23. It turns out that a group of prisoners  is following a self-imposed rule that says each person can only eat the dish they chose during  the interview or trade with others voluntarily, that way everyone gets fed without exceptions.  Those who follow that rule are known as Loyalists and those who don’t are called Barbarians. 

Robespierre points out that if Zamiatin eats something else for revenge, it’ll create a ripple  effect and leave the bottom levels without food. Zamiatin doesn’t care and is about to take a bite,  but Perempuan stops him by sharing her croquettes. The next day the prisoners from level 21 get  angry over the rules and Robespierre announces they may have to fight for their food.

Perempuan  immediately breaks her bed to get a metal bar she can use as a weapon. By the time the platform  reaches her level, there already is a dead man on it. Then Robespierre and a guy from 21 fall on  top of it while a woman from above keeps kicking off the food that fell on her level, not wanting  to be punished for a mistake.

However her level is already heating up and soon she catches on  fire, causing her body to fall on the platform as well. While Robespierre and the other man keep  on fighting, Perempuan puts the fire off with her bedsheets, however the woman is already dead. Then  she tries to join the fight only to quickly be brought down while the man from 21 is knocked out. 

At that moment the platform starts going down, so Perempuan and Robespierre rush to throw into  the pit all the food that fell on their level. The temperature starts falling at great speed, but  thankfully they get rid of all the food before they’re frozen to death. After the platform is  gone, Robespierre freaks out and cries as he realizes the burned woman is dead.

Zamiatin  tries to comfort him and Robespierre snaps, grabbing him by the neck. Perempuan has to  yell at them to stop them. The unconscious guy from 21 is tied up and Robespierre announces  he’ll take the body down the levels to look for the Anointed Ones.

Zamiatin doesn’t understand so  Robespierre shares the story. Sometime ago there was a man who became known as “the Master” or “the  Messiah”. He was the one that came up with the fair distribution rules but nobody knows if he’s  still alive or he ever truly existed.

The Master sent a message of hope, saying he survived a whole  month in a low level without eating by meditating. The following month he woke up at the very bottom  where food never reached, so he chose cannibalism and fed the needy with his own leg. Those who  ate the Master’s flesh are the Anointed Ones, and since then they’ve spread the Master’s message  of solidarity.

Zamiatin doesn’t believe the story and yells that he hasn’t eaten in two days before  the lights go out. Robespierre ignores the mocking and throws the burned woman’s body into the pit.  As it falls, it hits the edges of the different levels and the body starts breaking.

Eventually  all the pieces land on the bottom, where cannibals grab them to feed. The next day the platform  brings the pizza Zamiatin wanted and he finally gets to eat. Robespierre eats his dish and  throws the food of dead prisoners in the toilet.

He explains that arbitrary leftover distribution  only favors a small few and would only cause more fights and violence. Then Robespierre assigns a  few dishes for Zamiatin and Perempuan to protect before leaving on the platform with the prisoner.  Days start to pass and Zamiatin and Perempuan eat their own dishes.

They throw away the leftovers to  avoid trouble, but when nobody is looking Zamiatin eats a bit as well. Each day the duo grows closer  and they start helping each other with intimate things like grooming and sharing their food.  To keep herself busy, Perempuan doodles on the wall by scratching it with razors.

On the last day  of the month, Perempuan invites Zamiatin to draw something on the wall too. However he says he’s  more of a science guy and dedicated most of his life to study math. Zamiatin writes an equation on  the wall and explains it made him quit because the solution is an imaginary number.

He’d concluded  that if they accepted something without a physical reality as a correct solution, then he couldn’t  trust math again. That day he left his job at the university, his research, and abandoned his family  to go back to his parents’ house. Later that night they hear that the food reached level 175, which  never happened before.

Everyone starts celebrating and Perempuan asks Zamiatin to dance with her.  After some hesitation, he agrees and they have fun together. The next day Zamiatin and Perempuan  are horrified to wake up on Level 180.

When the platform arrives, it has no food at all. Days pass  and the duo has to suffer through their hunger. Once again Perempuan draws on the walls to keep  herself distracted.

Zamiatin’s chosen object is a lighter and he keeps using it to burn his  clothes just for fun. Eventually he starts getting burns on his skin too and Perempuan has to  stop him. Suddenly Zamiatin vomits tons of blood, revealing he’s sick.

At the same time a head falls  through the pit. Voices from above announce that some Anointed Ones are going through the  levels to kill Barbarians. Days continue to pass and Perempuan concentrates on taking care  of Zamiatin while people below them are starting to look scrawny.

Body parts keep on falling down  the pit too, it seems the Anointed Ones are still fighting. Messages come from above saying they’re  getting closer and there’s a list of Barbarians they want to catch, including a “fat man from 24”  who ate food belonging to the dead. To protect her partner, Perempuan says they used to be in  level 74.

That night Zamiatin thinks about the interview. He’d tried to say he came to the  facility because people were afraid of him, but the interviewer knew the truth:  Zamiatin dropped out of school at 16, all his business ideas failed, his wife and kids  kicked him out, and even his parents got tired of him. They sent him to the facility so he could get  some discipline.

Deciding he has nothing left to live for and that Perempuan shouldn’t be punished  for protecting him, Zamiatin uses his lighter to self-delete. Perempuan cries as she watches his  body fall into the pit. People in the lower floors try to catch him hoping for meat, but the flames  almost hurt them too so they let go.

The body lands at the bottom and the cannibals wait for the  fire to go out before eating. At the beginning of the new month, Perempuan wakes up on level 51  with Natalia, who chose plums as her food and a pillow as her object. She’s also missing an arm. 

When the platform comes, the plums are missing, but Perempuan convinces Natalia to follow  the rules. At night, Perempuan hallucinates Zamiatin in the room with her. Sometime later a  head falls down the pit and the women learn that an Anointed One known as Dagin Babi is killing  Barbarians all over the place.

The rules say that only the prisoners directly above the level  with a Barbarian should go down to punish them, but the next time the platform comes down, Natalia  still jumps on it to join the fight. Eager to avenge Zamiatin, Perempuan decides to come along.  As the platform goes down, more and more prisoners agree to join their cause.

Eventually they  reach a level with a Barbarian called Oscar, who attacks first and stabs a person on the  platform. A vicious fight ensues that leaves everyone bleeding and bruising. After lots of  punches and kicks are exchanged, Oscar pretends to surrender only to jump on the platform when  it’s about to leave.

A furious Natalia jumps too and starts beating him up, so Oscar brings her  down and gets ready to stab her. At that moment Perempuan lands on the platform as it stops on  the next level. While Perempuan rescues Natalia, another prisoner jumps on Oscar and starts choking  him.

Unfortunately the man gets stabbed as well, so Perempuan cuts in to start beating him up  again. Oscar begins to cry and explains he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s been in the facility for  over a year and had to eat something to recover, he only wants to survive like everyone else. 

Perempuan takes pity on him and lets him escape on the platform, blocking Natalia when she tries to  stop him. That night Natalia explains she’s been in the facility for six months. When she arrived,  her cellmate explained the rules and she agreed to follow them, even if she didn’t find them fair. 

But sometime later they found a dying young man and gave him a dead prisoner’s food to save him.  The following day Dagin Babi came to punish them. She took Natalia’s arm and killed her cellmate  by strapping her to the bottom of the platform, letting the cannibals at the end of the pit eat  her.

That day Natalia realized nobody ever leaves the facility and survival is an illusion. The only  way to live is by escaping, and Natalia thinks it can be done when the prisoners are gassed and  moved around during the end of the month. If they can fake their deaths, then their bodies will  be thrown out of the facility by administration instead.

Natalia believes she can do it by eating  the oil painting a prisoner brought as their item, but she doesn’t know what level it’s on. A few  days later, they see a man tied to the bottom of the platform. This means Dagin Babi and his  group are getting closer, so Natalia convinces Perempuan to go down to avoid them.

Unfortunately  at that moment the platform stops, bringing Dagin Babi and his followers. At first he pretends  to be generous and lets them eat something, but as soon as the platform leaves, Dagin makes  some of his people capture Natalia, Perempuan, and those who went down with her to fight the  other day. Dagin offers a long speech about how people must obey the law, not interpret it.

Making  exceptions are just an excuse to be disloyal, and he reveals he’s missing his eyes as if that  proved his point. Then the group undresses Natalia and ties her to the bottom of the platform to  be sent to the cannibals. Perempuan is held down with her arm extended over the pit, so when  the platform goes down it rips it off.

Meanwhile in the mysterious room, the kids continue to  play as they appear to multiply. The next month, Perempuan wakes up on level 72 and meets her new  cellmate Trimagasi, whose object is a knife. Him being alive reveals this story happens before the  first movie.

When the platform arrives, Trimagasi eats without following the rules. Perempuan has  given up on this unfair justice and jumps on it, inviting Trimagasi to come along. As they go down,  Perempuan convinces more Barbarians to join her, including Oscar.

There are so many people who hate  the Loyalists that soon the platform is pretty crowded. A few levels later, Perempuan announces  their group is big enough and they get off the platform. It’s then revealed that the infamous  painting is in that cell and finding it had been Perempuan’s objective all along, recruiting  fellow Barbarians had only been a way to gain protection.

The next day, Dagin Babi makes sure  to empty the platform before it reaches the level with Perempuan’s group. He explains he’ll wait  for them to be weak to attack and kill them, but he’ll consider mercy if they surrender now.  An argument ensues on how to proceed and some Barbarians leave for the lower levels.

Suddenly  Trimagasi interrupts the argument with an idea: they should all go down and eat any Loyalist they  find. The group loves the idea and while they celebrate, Perempuan remembers sharing her story  during the interview. She used to be an important artist and the painting Natalia had been looking  for had been her object all along.

Her fiance had a child from another marriage, and Perempuan had  accidentally killed him. The next time Perempuan wakes up, she tastes meat in her mouth. She’s been  refusing to eat human flesh, but she became very scrawny so a lady fed her to help her recover. 

Seeing hallucinations of all her fallen friends, Perempuan has no choice but to start eating the  meat the Barbarians offer her. Sometime later the platform is approaching and while everyone  is getting ready to fight, Perempuan hides the painting in her pants, which is noticed by Oscar.  The platform arrives with a bunch of mattresses that suddenly fall, revealing Dagin Babi and  his group of Loyalists who immediately attack.

A vicious fight begins and both sides start killing  opponents without mercy, covering the entire place in blood. It becomes difficult to see who is  who, and Trimagasi accidentally stabs a woman he had a crush on. Traumatized, he decides to stop  fighting and hides under the bed.

Meanwhile Oscar sits on top of Perempuan and starts choking her.  Trimagasi notices this and hands her his knife, which she uses to stab Oscar. He dies after  asking why the painting was so important.

Then she moves to hide with Trimagasi and cries  while the prisoners continue to kill each other. Even Dagin Babi goes down, and in the end nobody  is left alive except for Trimagasi and Perempuan. When the platform goes down, the bodies start  falling into the pit.

Perempuan comes out and notices Dagin Babi is still breathing, but  she decides not to kill him so he can suffer until the end. Afterward Perempuan throws all the  remaining bodies down the pit, leaving a now dead Dagin for last. She tells Trimagasi she’s leaving  and asks him to come along but he decides to stay, saying this was the best month of his life. 

Then Perempuan starts eating her oil painting and passes out with foam in her mouth right before  the gas fills the cell. In the mysterious room, a whole pile of children are struggling to  climb up until a boy makes it to the top. At that moment a light shines on him and two adults  from administration arrive to take him away.

When Perempuan wakes up, she’s tied to a pile of dead  bodies being moved by facility workers, meaning Natalia’s plan worked. The pile is pushed through  the pit and Perempuan gets to see how the workers clean the cells and re-arranged the sleeping  prisoners using low gravity. When the workers leave the pile at the end of the pit, Perempuan  has a devastating realization: this isn’t the exit, this is level 333.

She immediately wriggles  free from the rope and hides under a bed while watching the men bring in the chosen kid. The boy  is left on another bed and the pile of bodies is pushed through a hole into a secret level lower  under 333. Still feeling guilty for killing her fiancé’s kid, Perempuan decides to cleanse her  consciousness by saving this one.

She makes a jump to reach the other bed, only to accidentally  hit her head. Then she picks up the kid and tries to leave, but the gravity is still a problem and  causes her to hit her head again until she passes out. Perempuan reappears on the platform with the  kid in the middle and a bunch of cannibals ready to eat.

A man gives her a knife as inviting her to  feed on the child, but at that moment she wakes up screaming. It’s just her and the boy in level 333,  and the platform soon takes them down to the very dark bottom. Soon the cannibals surround her but  they don’t attack her because of the child.

They explain Perempuan must stay because her journey  is over and only the children get to go back up again. The cannibals help Perempuan get off the  platform and watch how it starts going up again, taking the kid to new prisoners. As time passes,  more and more prisoners arrive to the bottom on top of the platform carrying a child.

It seems  the facility keeps a bunch of kids as a tool to manipulate the prisoners, using them as a fake  sign of hope or to stop anyone from trying to escape. This includes the ending of the first  movie, showing Goreng arrive with a girl while seeing a hallucination of Trimagasi. Goreng  gets off the platform so the girl can go up again.

At that moment Perempuan finds Goreng  and hugs him, revealing he was her fiancé.