The present is catching up with ecodystopia
Constant turmoil: Charlton Heston on the poster for “Soylent Green”
In 1973 the film “The Year 2022 … Those Who Want to Survive” moved Charlton Heston into our present – and led to a terrible realization. Once you have had it, you will never forget it again. How much of the early ecodystopia has come true.
SScience fiction doesn’t necessarily have to be measured by how accurate its predictions are. But if it is always correct or only just missed, you can start pondering: Did a trace lead straight to our present back then, when designing the future? Why didn’t anyone else think of it? And most seriously: If all of this was so clearly evident, what guilt rests on us who have not prevented it?
The film “Soylent Green” is from 1973, but takes place in a time that the German title squeezes out breathlessly: “… year 2022 … who want to survive.” The situation is as follows: the seas have been fished empty, air and water polluted, the earth suffers from global warming as a result of the thoughtless use of fossil fuels and from enormous overpopulation (40 million people live in New York alone, where the film is set), the gap between rich and poor is grotesquely wide. While some are screaming in the streets with hunger, others reside high up in luxurious apartment towers, whose inventory includes young slaves who are handed over when tenants change.
Charlton Heston plays a cop, Frank Thorn, demoralized by years of unsuccessfulness. Will his new case turn things around? A big animal has apparently been murdered, a board member of Soylent Corporation, a pillar of the country’s precarious infrastructure. After a long time since animals and plants were no longer available as food, the company produces and sells the substitutes Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow. Recently there is also Soylent Green, which tastes better and is more nutritious. In the event of delivery bottlenecks, riots break out on the streets.
Thorn finds out a “terrible truth” through all sorts of exciting detours, for which he had to strain a priest’s vow of silence. Thorn’s roommate Sol, played by the great Edward G. Robinson in his last role, even goes to his death voluntarily from the shock of the results of the investigation. For this purpose there are institutions that provide friendly assistance to those willing to die. You swallow a drink and watch deer peacefully as they graze before sunsets. The cynicism sometimes bears the grimace of cuteness.
The punch line of the film has become a catchphrase. Nevertheless, it should not be revealed here. At a time that is built dismayingly close to the film’s scenario, it is worth watching it again, preferably restored in 4k. We almost caught up with his horror. The year it was published, the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth report was just one year old. Since then, “Soylent Green” has been counted among the first eco-dystopias. A genre that since then – despite its content – has proven to be fruitful.
Pop culture pounced on the title like the masses on the little green tablets that are sold under the same name. That was the name of the previous band of the Doctors Soilent Grün. And in American supermarkets you can buy Soylent Green crackers that look exactly like in the film under the brand name. Hopefully they will only taste different.
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