SOYLENT GREEN (1973)
I believe in the power and virtue of
optimism, but anyone who takes a good look around knows this mess
we've wrought can't possibly bode well for the future.
In the meantime, persist we must—so let's eat.
In the meantime, persist we must—so let's eat.
 |
| And for dinner, one of the many fine Soylent concoctions, on a cracker. |
“Eat something.”
“I'm not hungry enough yet.”
“Tasteless, odorless crud.”
In the year 2022, the population
of New York City has exploded to over 40 million. Famine, mass unemployment, crime, disease, pollution, total despair—you name it, they've got
it. And since the disparity of wealth has continued to widen (while resources dwindled) throughout
the ensuing years, the world has essentially split into 2 classes: the rich
and the desperately impoverished.
A vast majority of those 40 million New
Yorkers are sick and homeless, and have taken to living and
sleeping wherever there's space—scurrying and trampling and cohabiting not
unlike mice amid an infestation.
And then there's the matter of food, the lack of which has been causing riots. As state-issued weekly rations of the popular new Soylent Green continue to shrink (and with food shortages widespread), staving off hunger is becoming exceedingly difficult, even to working men.
“You don't know any better.”
“You know, in my day, food was food...before our scientific magicians
poisoned the water, polluted the soil, decimated plant and animal
life.”
“I know, Sol, you told me before.”
 |
| Detective Thorn and Sol Roth, his old friend and partner/police analyst, share a tiny apartment—which is more than most have. |
“How can anything survive in a climate like this? A heat wave all year long.”
During a homicide investigation (and the subsequent
plundering of the wealthy victim's apartment), Thorn manages to get hold of a few items that will interest his old pal very much.
In the future, stealing from the rich is apparently not only accepted, it's expected. At least in police work, it is. Just so long as everyone gets their cut.
In the future, stealing from the rich is apparently not only accepted, it's expected. At least in police work, it is. Just so long as everyone gets their cut.
 |
| Detective Thorn's boss, Chief Hatcher (Brock Peters), wastes no time cutting to the chase.
“What did you take?”
“Everything I could lay my hands on.”
|
“What's for mother?”
The victim of a brutal bludgeoning, William Simonson (Joseph Cotten) was an important man—a
very rich man, in fact, with a good many wondrous things.
And so when Thorn returns from work that night, it's like Christmas in July.
And so when Thorn returns from work that night, it's like Christmas in July.
“You ever see a cake of soap that big?”
“What the hell...oh, my god.”
“Sol...”
“Hmmm?”
“Beef?!”
“How did we come to this?”
“Come on, Sol, don't take it so
big...look, we're doing okay.”
And later...
Thorn doesn't quite know what to make
of Sol's shiny steel eating instruments, or the strange, crispy green
leaf on his plate.
Did people actually eat this stuff? Hatcher could be right—maybe the old
man is cracking up. Where's the Soylent?
But hey, what's this?
when i was a kid i loved post-nuclear movies. i loved the planet of the apes series + the omega man. i loved to read kamandi: the last boy on earth in the comic books. i really liked even lesser films such as damnation alley, etc. there was plenty of same themed made for tv movies as well. i loved them all...well, except for where have all the people gone? i couldn't get into it as a kid. i still can not get into it as an adult. then...there's soylent green. this film unlike all of the others really disturbed and upset me. perhaps it was because the world presented is not too far removed from the images i was seeing on the evening news at the time. unlike the other films where the world that we know went out with a bang. in this film the world is slowly, very slowly declining and falling apart.
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