Soylent Green; The disturbance of Balance

Film Analysis Entry 1: Soylent Green
January 7, 2015

Soylent Green, directed by Richard Fliescher in 1973 and based on Harry Harrison's 'MakeRoom!MakeRoom!" novel, shows NYC in the year 2022.  The most basic plot follows Thorn, a police officer, who is investigating  a murder case of a wealthy man by the name of Simonson.  However, as the plot unfolds, the real purpose of this film lies in the details which then uncover the truth about living in a corrupted, unbalanced and inhumane society.  As it turns out, NYC in the year 2022 has become a classic dystopia.

In the opening scene the music and flashes of images gives the audience a bit of background knowledge as to how NYC became the dystopia that the film exemplifies.  Beginning happily the music plays and the images show life in America as we generally know it; strong, united, flourishing, balanced, purposeful.  As the music picks up speed the images become increasingly haunting.  The booming of businesses and widespread factory use creates an excellent economy.  Unfortunately, consequences, such as pollution and major class division, occur that seem to outweigh the positives and as NYC begins to degenerate the music slows down as well.  Instead of revolutionizing, society accepts these consequences.  Thus, the wealthy continue to become more powerful and the poor become repressed.  Civil disobedience becomes necessary for survival, over population becomes normal, and corruption forces people to loose sight of who they are and lead very meaningless lives. Only those that experienced life before this tragic downfall hold onto hope.  But perhaps this is the same reason they are the ones that suffer the most.

Sol Roth, a dear friend of Thorn, is one who holds onto the ideal that all hope is not lost and acts as the voice of insight and reason into a society that has none.  This is most likely the same reason that pushes him to "go home" near the end of the film.  In a society that lacks reason, he has no purpose and with no purpose there is no life.  One of the most powerful scenes of the movie was when Thorn brought Sol Roth fresh vegetables and beef.

Sol Roth weeps and asks "How did we come to this?"  Little does he know he answered his own question earlier when he stated "No one tries, no one cares."

In a society that only operates for the sake of merely existing with no purpose for life, why would anyone try or care?  Especially when there is nothing to care about or try for.  Priests and cops alike only do their jobs because that is the title they came to know but it is not one that fulfills them.  Therefore, cops steal and use police brutality and because even priests have lost their way they are unable to guide others.  Women, referred to as Furniture, act as live-in prostitutes that come with apartments.  They are simply objects to be possessed in a male dominated world with no real identity.

There is no freedom, no rights, no self worth.  Only self-preservation remains in a society stripped of any moral ground and balance between ignorance and reason.  In a society such as this, every detail of life is manipulated and so, life itself is manipulated.  People become disposable and morbidly reusable because after death they are then processed back into Soylent Green, the very food that keeps society alive.   Though they are unaware they have become cannibals.  Perhaps, this is the reasoning behind the ability for society to become inhumane.

The movie trailer asks 'What is Soylent Green?' but perhaps the more important question is where would this society be if the people refused to rely on Soylent Green?  Additionally, why did these people accept this way of life?  Yes, after eating the Soylent Green they may have become inhumane but before how did ignorance outweigh reason when revolution would normally come before acceptance?

The Dystopian genre, though thrilling, goes far beyond entertainment.  Instead, it acts as a precautionary warning to the human race as to what could happen if we allow the degeneration of civilization.  Personally, though a good message, I found the film to be a bit hard to fully accept simply because the scenarios presented were pushed too far and became too extreme.  This is not to dismiss terrible events that have occurred in history; such as the holocaust, WW1 and even 9/11, but it is to bring attention back to the fact that basic human nature was able to overcome these catastrophes and not become destroyed by them.  Dystopian films examine only the negative, ignorant outcomes which is why the tragic end results are possible.  Though, in reality, one does not choose which side to examine.  Rather, ignorance and reason exist together in harmony and balance.  When there is a disturbance of this balance, chaos is possible.