"Soylent Green" is one of these sci-fi movies that keep you thinking 'we'll get there' so that whatever negative reaction it elicits, that'll never be indifference. As for me, it became a certitude that Harry Harrison's prophetic vision of 2022 would come to reality sooner or later, and the opening credit sequences is a simple but effective-way to establish that the urban nightmare featured in the film is a logical continuation of the uncontrollable increase of the population.

The fast-paced montage of photographs leaps over one century in less than three minutes, where stills of crowded streets in the Big Apple and highway spiderwebs, make pictures of vast landscapes as obsolete as the Dodo. And in that whirlpool of suicide-inducing images, some ought to catch the attention of a 2020's audience. "Soylent Green" might not have the wizardry arthouse feel of Stanley Kubrick's "2001" but a certain pandemic increased its significance. In this 2022 New York basking under clouds of yellow suffocation, people wear masks, need permits to circulate, ration cards to eat and can consider themselves lucky if they don't sleep on stairs.

Even the least literate mind can feel the Orwellian vibes with corporations playing the Big Brother role, and we can forgive that 2022 looks oddly similar to the 70s and that digital technology didn't make much progress, but the merit of Richard Fleischer is not to aim too high so that the film can easily hit the target and makes its point, sparing us a lecture on Malthus theories about the regulations of population and the balance between demographics and food supplies. While the material calls for pessimism-driven analysis, the script written by Stanley Greenberg follows the usual patterns of detective stories with new layers revealed at the right time.

And so we have alpha male Detective Frank Thorn, played by Charlton Heston and his partner and roommate Sol, Edward G. Robinson in his final role. Sol is an old man who age-wise represents the 70s audiences or any viewer for that matter, one who can recall a time where food was real, where fruits existed, where the fauna and flora of the planet weren't annihilated. He keeps rambling about them to an oblivious Frank just as then-audiences in the 70s heard stories about the Great Depression. Heston plays his Frank in sheer detachment, which is the right approach as someone for which this is the only 'reality', the catch is that like the vast majority of people, he doesn't know the secret about that reality.

But whatever is to be discovered by Thorn is pending in the right order on the narrative's line, one we follow step by step. It starts when a big corporation executive named Samuelson (Joseph Cotton) is assassinated by a hitman and the murder is disguised as a botched burglary. The guilt-ridden victim knew his fate and didn't fight back. Frank is the one in charge and he handles the case rather cooly, thrilled by the opportunity to explore an upper apartment and bring back some trophies. He lets the bodyguard (Chuck Connors) file some red tape and then washes his head in the bathroom, takes a soap bar and admires the 'furniture' played by the beautiful Leigh Taylor-Young. The story warns us that in a time where necessity prevails, women's liberation would take many steps backwards.

Frank brings back some real food from the house and later comes one of the most memorable movie eating scenes. What we see is a young man realizing what food is and one reminiscing about how it was. Think about it, what was the last time you went to a pub? The last time you could walk and breath without a mask? In these Covid-eras, we learned to value things, but we know they'll be back some day. Robinson's performance is integral to the power of that scene, every gulp, every drop he swallows gives a poignant dimension. In fact all the Heston-Robinson scenes are heightened by the subtext of their beautiful friendship, like in "Double Indemnity", Robinson can handle a manly 'I love you' without being a sap.

Progressively, the film gets in the vicinity of these 70s paranoid conspiracy thrillers where a hunter becomes the hunted one. At that point of the review, there's no use to reveal the secret, let's just say that it became one of the most iconic quotes of American cinema and one that inspired a solution from Homer Simpson for overpopulation. The investigation in itself is rather formulaic and Fleischer doesn't have the right flair when it comes to handle action sequences, but the film is transcended by the Robinson's final scene, perhaps the most glorious swan song an actor ever had.

The sequence is a classic: Sol, tired of all this nonsensical world, decides to go "home", he pick his favorite music, his favorite color (another scene parodied in "The Simpsons") and enjoys for the last time the sight of nature the way it used to be (in that nightmarish future, at least they kept the footage). Sol's eyes are filled with tears and so are Frank's. Knowing that Edward G. Robinson was dying of cancer, you can see these were genuine tears from the two actors and friends. Heston crying because he's bidding farewell to his friend, Frank's crying because he sees his friend dying or that world that is dead already, there's a whirlpool of tears induced by sights and sounds from Beethoven's symphony, culminating with a last "I love you" right before Gynt's morning music and a sunset illuminates the screen.

That's a depiction of death that hasn't been equalled in any movie, as we see ourselves as part of the universe, embracing its eternal beauty before leaving. We'll get to that moment, but will that be as magnificent as Sol's departure? (perhaps the one moment of timelessness where "Soylent Green" came the closest to "2001").

In 2022, Earth is overpopulated and totally polluted; the natural resources have exhaust and the nourishment of the population is supplied by the Soylent Industries, a food made by plankton from the oceans. In New York, when the Soylent's member of the board William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotton) is murdered apparently by a burglar at the Chelsea Towers West where he lives, the efficient Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) is assigned to investigate the case with his partner Solomon "Sol" Roth (Edward G. Robinson).

Thorn comes to the fancy apartment and meets Simonson's bodyguard Tab Fielding (Chuck Connors) and the "furniture" (woman that is rented together with the flat) Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young) and the detective concludes that the executive was not victim of burglary but executed. Further, he finds that the Governor Santini (Whit Bissell) and other powerful men want to disrupt and end his investigation. But Thorn continues his work and discovers that the oceans have exhausted and the bizarre and disturbing secret of the ingredient used to manufacture Soylent Green.

"Soylent Green" is one of the best sci-fi ever made and a film that has not aged. On the contrary, when I saw it in the movie theater in 1973, it was another good film with catastrophic view of the future. Along the years, I have seen this film on VHS at least four more times and every time that I see it, I find it better and better. In Brazil, this film has not been released on DVD or Blu-ray, only in the movie-theater in 1973 and on a rare VHS with the title "No Mundo de 2020" (translation: "In the World of 2020", despite the story takes place in 2022) and I have just bought the imported Blu-Ray and saw it again.

It is impressive how the writer Harry Harrison was capable to foresee the future in 1966 with pollution, overpopulation and menace of exhaustion of the natural resources and write his novel "Make Room! Make Room!". In those years, the concept of ecology did not exist, at least the same way in the present days. The grim view of the cannibalism to fee the population introduced by Stanley R. Greenberg in the screenplay fortunately has not been achieved yet.

"Soylent Green" is also the film number 101 in the career of the unforgettable actor Edward G. Robinson that was with cancer and almost deaf during the shooting and died two weeks after the conclusion of this film. The Blu-Ray has in the extras a tribute to this great actor. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "No Mundo de 2020" ("In the World of 2020")

The only other film besides Soylent Green that has such an air of hopelessness is On the Beach. Both films deal with the consequences for the species and the planet from man made cataclysms. On the Beach with nuclear war and Soylent Green with the environmental poisoning of the planet.

Maybe there's cause for some optimism because as of 2007 we haven't reached either of the worlds described in those films and we were supposed to by now. New York City still has about 8 million people not the 22 million by the turn of the millenia as described in Soylent Green. Environmentalists always hail this film as showing the consequence of global warming. For myself it also shows the Right to Life ethic run amuck. Obviously there's no family planning in this world either.

Charlton Heston is an NYPD detective who lives with room mate Edward G. Robinson who's old enough to remember the Earth before catastrophe struck. There's been a murder committed, Joseph Cotten an executive with the Soylent Corporation, a multi-national concern that has come up with a food product, some kind of wafer in many colors to feed the world's population. It's latest product is Soylent Green.

The investigation finds Charlton Heston getting his man, but also it leads to some horrifying truths about the Soylent Corporation and the future of mankind. As Heston shouts in the end that Soylent Green is made of people, that we've become a race of cannibals, the horrifying thing is that there is no alternative. We've exhausted the planet and we have to eat our dead to survive.

This was the farewell performance of Edward G. Robinson and in his memoirs Heston spoke movingly of Robinson even though they had differing political views. A few weeks after Robinson wrapped that final scene of his screen demise by consented euthanasia, he passed away in real life. Not many did, but Heston knew that Robinson was terminally ill and there was no acting involved in that final death scene between the two of them.

Though the timetable was off, it doesn't mean that the world envisioned by Soylent Green may not come to pass. Hopefully we'll have not just the intelligence, but the sense of shared responsibility to keep that from happening.