I actually find this movie to be very believable. Fleischer really wows me with his eye for details, small things that illicit quite good responses in the narrative. In Tora, Tora, Tora , he successfully details the minutia of the thinking that went on behind this unknown-to-the-characters attack, in a way that helps the already-knowing audience how the historical people really felt. I think it's great that Soylent Green works the same way, where you can know all about how it's made of people and yet the reveal still illicits surprise and dismay.
In this case, also, there's a sort of working backward effect to it. Charlton Heston has something great going for him in post-Apocalypse narratives (whereas his historical epics not) but this is more reserved, and the scene where he is enjoying a feast with Sal makes you really feel the absence of the food in their regular lives. The riot police wearing football helmets actually makes sense—all this sports equipment lying around, no more interest in sports, no more money for riot gear. The simplest smallest details really stand out, both in the detail of the world and how to achieve good results without a big budget for special effects.
Meanwhile, I am impressed how daring the gender politics are in this because actually, this vision is believable, and it is horrible, and it would have been (and probably was) easy for the movie to be misconstrued. In an arena of exhausted resources and overpopulation I can totally believe in the rich using women for life as "furniture". It really works great that the whole humanitarian principle behind the "Oh noes, we're eating ourselves!" is so shocking to a character completely comfortable with using women as furniture. The movie walks a thin line between empathy and concern for its characters (successful) and realization that even what they are comfortable with is horrifying to our current perspective (also successful).
Then there's the introductory titles, Sal's retirement chamber, and the closing sequence. Fleischer extends a bit into the experimental and the effect is riveting. For instance, in the retirement chamber, the almost commercial over-indulgence in nature cinematography becomes less a commercial for Pfizer and more an aching remembrance of times past—but it's created by a company that might well be the future of Pfizer. It's a past that is gone and also never existed anyway. It's the past they want to believe in AND have nostalgia for AND never experienced, not knowing that it didn't really look quite like that. However, it also informs to the audience what we're losing. It's still a commercial of good meaning, pointing out cinematographically what we don't look at now.
The bookending titles work in roughly the same way with opposite values. The opening sequence is a masterful montage of human development paced to human development. Slow steps become leaps become exponential growths as the cuts get faster and faster and more overwhelming. The closing sequence is repeated imagery from Sal's chamber, now shown as something not achieved—something out of reach. With these two statements, Fleischer points out it's already too late.
This is a movie that also operates scene-by-scene. The overarching investigation narrative certainly helps to draw the movie together but it's amazing how distinct little vignettes appear throughout the movie. The introductory sequence of Sal and Thorn and how it's lit to look like their space is lit only by a single bulb, and the careful detail of how these two men live so close together and don't get on their nerves—and then are later revealed to basically be living a decent "middle class life" amongst the masses literally massed on stairways the furniture party the strawberries. These things lead to the idea that there are stories going on beyond our vision that we just don't have the time or power to be able to perceive. It's almost possible to imagine actually a separate reveal where the world ISN'T so overcrowded and only the people of New York have been trapped in a rat cage if only we could look further.
Anyway, this far beats Omega Man and Planet of the Apes, and I qualify those three in that order, Soylent Green first.
--PoalrisDiB
In this case, also, there's a sort of working backward effect to it. Charlton Heston has something great going for him in post-Apocalypse narratives (whereas his historical epics not) but this is more reserved, and the scene where he is enjoying a feast with Sal makes you really feel the absence of the food in their regular lives. The riot police wearing football helmets actually makes sense—all this sports equipment lying around, no more interest in sports, no more money for riot gear. The simplest smallest details really stand out, both in the detail of the world and how to achieve good results without a big budget for special effects.
Meanwhile, I am impressed how daring the gender politics are in this because actually, this vision is believable, and it is horrible, and it would have been (and probably was) easy for the movie to be misconstrued. In an arena of exhausted resources and overpopulation I can totally believe in the rich using women for life as "furniture". It really works great that the whole humanitarian principle behind the "Oh noes, we're eating ourselves!" is so shocking to a character completely comfortable with using women as furniture. The movie walks a thin line between empathy and concern for its characters (successful) and realization that even what they are comfortable with is horrifying to our current perspective (also successful).
Then there's the introductory titles, Sal's retirement chamber, and the closing sequence. Fleischer extends a bit into the experimental and the effect is riveting. For instance, in the retirement chamber, the almost commercial over-indulgence in nature cinematography becomes less a commercial for Pfizer and more an aching remembrance of times past—but it's created by a company that might well be the future of Pfizer. It's a past that is gone and also never existed anyway. It's the past they want to believe in AND have nostalgia for AND never experienced, not knowing that it didn't really look quite like that. However, it also informs to the audience what we're losing. It's still a commercial of good meaning, pointing out cinematographically what we don't look at now.
The bookending titles work in roughly the same way with opposite values. The opening sequence is a masterful montage of human development paced to human development. Slow steps become leaps become exponential growths as the cuts get faster and faster and more overwhelming. The closing sequence is repeated imagery from Sal's chamber, now shown as something not achieved—something out of reach. With these two statements, Fleischer points out it's already too late.
This is a movie that also operates scene-by-scene. The overarching investigation narrative certainly helps to draw the movie together but it's amazing how distinct little vignettes appear throughout the movie. The introductory sequence of Sal and Thorn and how it's lit to look like their space is lit only by a single bulb, and the careful detail of how these two men live so close together and don't get on their nerves—and then are later revealed to basically be living a decent "middle class life" amongst the masses literally massed on stairways the furniture party the strawberries. These things lead to the idea that there are stories going on beyond our vision that we just don't have the time or power to be able to perceive. It's almost possible to imagine actually a separate reveal where the world ISN'T so overcrowded and only the people of New York have been trapped in a rat cage if only we could look further.
Anyway, this far beats Omega Man and Planet of the Apes, and I qualify those three in that order, Soylent Green first.
--PoalrisDiB