The Greatest Horror of ‘Soylent Green’ Isn’t Soylent Green It’s This – Collider

At the height of the 21st century, Richard Fleischers Soylent Green can make for a somewhat weird watch. Originally released in 1973, the film first produces a sense of disconnect in modern viewers with its initial card, which dates its plot as taking place in the far-off year of 2022. The films extremely 1970s brand of sexism and neo-Malthusian approach to overpopulation can also feel uncomfortable for contemporary eyes. And, yet, Soylent Greens social and environmental concerns feel all the more urgent in a world in which climate change has become undeniable - though many still try - and the 1% looks for morally questionable ways to survive the imminent apocalypse. Though it hardly comes as a surprise to anyone, the films final reveal - Soylent green is people! - still packs one hell of a punch.

But theres something in Soylent Green that feels even more wrong than the realization that humanity has been engaging in involuntary cannibalism. It might not be as gruesome, but its certainly just as harrowing and a lot more daunting in just how much it speaks about the nature of humanity in such a world. This horror is the assisted suicide clinic in which Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) chooses to end his life.

Despite being an integral part of the Soylent Green universe, the euthanasia facility is introduced fairly late on in the movie. Its addition to the plot, however, is essential to help viewers understand just how devoid of value human life has become in such a scarcity-ridden world. It is the one place in which the poor and weak of the Soylent Green society may find some semblance of dignity, but it is also the place to which you go to be turned from an unproductive individual into a product. When push comes to shove, yes, there is an intrinsic horror in learning that you have been consuming human flesh against your will throughout most of your life, but theres nothing like the realization that the only solace you can find is in choosing to die to make you realize just how little you are worth to society. And the way in which Sol decides for his own death only serves to make it all more petrifying.

RELATED: "The Only Good Human Is a Dead Human": Looking Back at 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes'

Based on the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room!, by sci-fi author Harry Harrison, Soylent Green introduces us to an Earth ravaged by pollution, wealth inequality, and overpopulation. Food has become scarce, and the vast majority of the worlds population is able to feed only on nutritious cubes produced by a megacorporation named Soylent. The most popular of the companys products is the titular Soylent Green, a protein-filled snack allegedly made out of plankton. As the rich and powerful hide in elegant apartments, cities are overrun by poor people living either in the streets or in gun-guarded tenements. Meanwhile, the countryside has become off-limits in order to protect its few remaining crops. Human life has been commodified to a point in which people are all but literally turned into objects: furniture is the name given to women bought for housekeeping and sexual services by the rich, while a book is a live-in researcher assigned to a police detective by their precinct.

Our person of interest in this article, Sol Roth, is a police book in the service of Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston). An elderly man with fond memories of the old world, he has trouble adjusting to his new reality. How can he do his research job if no books have been published in over a decade? How can he enjoy Soylent when he still remembers the taste of real strawberries? It is a harsh existence, but it only becomes truly unbearable to him after the murder of Soylent executive William Simonson (Joseph Cotten). As Sol and Thorn dive deep into the mystery of Simonsons death, some corporate secrets come to the surface. More specifically, as Sol looks into the top-secret research papers published by Soylent on the state of the Earths oceans, it becomes clear that there is not enough plankton for the manufacturing of Soylent Green. The super nutritious protein cubes, as it turns out, are made of people. They are made of the bodies that are picked up from the streets by the sanitation department, as well as of the bodies of those that choose to die in this universe's assisted suicide clinics.

This is too much for Sol to take in. Upon learning all this information, he sees no other option for himself but to surrender his own life to the state - and to Soylent. He leaves a small note for Thorn and walks to the closest euthanasia facility, where lines of people, young and old, all dressed in rags, wait to be put to sleep for the very last time. His decision is made a lot more heartbreaking by the fact that he knows what will happen to his body once the people of the clinic are done with him: he will be turned into Soylent Green. From a commodified human being, he will be transformed into a consumable good.

By choosing to turn himself into Soylent Green, Sol receives a respectful treatment for what is probably the first time in many, many years. He finds dignity in the facility's cool air conditioning system - a respite from the scalding hot air of the city, courtesy of the greenhouse effect. He finds kindness in the smiles and low voices of the clinics employees, that promises him a pleasant experience. He finds comfort in the bed and in the poison-laced drink, and beauty in the classical music hes chosen to accompany him in his final moments. Finally, he finds God and home in the images of the world he has lost, shown to him in huge cinemascope screens.

Sols death by assisted suicide is by far the most heartbreaking and shocking moment in Soylent Green, and not just because it hasnt been spoiled endlessly, unlike the Soylent Green is people reveal. However, the sheer existence of the euthanasia facility in the movie is already enough to send chills down anyones spine. It is horrifying to imagine a world in which dignity can only be found in death, and only if you choose to die, whether you know you will be turned into food. The people that die in the streets or in overcrowded churches are granted no such kindness. You are treated with respect only if you accept that you are nothing more than surplus and give up on trying to become anything else. The fact that this particular kind of assisted suicide is treated as humane only makes it all the more disturbing.

In the end, the reaction it evokes from us is much deeper than what is brought forth by the cannibalism reveal. Learning what Soylent Green is actually made of is shocking. It scares us and makes us nauseous, but the feeling goes away. The euthanasia clinic stays with us. It not only scares us, but brings us down. It kills something inside our very souls. Because, you see, even in the world of Soylent Green, forcing people to eat each other was something that had to be done in secret. Offering people death as the only alternative to an unbearable experience was done out in the open, with a veneer of charity and a little bit of spectacle. More than anything, this is the real sign that our humanity is gone: we are convinced to give up on it, and only by doing so are we able to regain it in the form of beauty and dignity.

See the rest here:

The Greatest Horror of 'Soylent Green' Isn't Soylent Green It's This - Collider