Zero Population Growth

Interesting Precursor to "Children of Men"
Set in a dystopian future, Z.P.G. ("Zero Population Growth") tells the Malthusian tale of a world where the planet's natural resources have been consumed to such a critical level that the "World Federation Council" puts a 30-year ban on childbirth in the hopes of curbing the drain. All pre-edict children are marked, and any births after nine months of the edict result in the summary execution of the lawbreaking parents and their offspring. Throughout the smog-filled landscape, desperate people watch for errant infants they can turn in for extra food or oxygen.

In the world of Z.P.G., people spend their free time going to museums where they can see stuffed house pets, demonstrations of how gasoline was used to fuel vehicles, and films of forgotten relics like lakes and streams. Deprived of children, they also turn to technology for comfort. We first meet Russell McNeil (Oliver Reed, displaying none of his usual screen presence) and his wife Carol (Geraldine Chaplin) at Baby...

Retro Futurism at it's bleakest
I loved this movie and can't really see what was so awful about it. There are times when movies are given the B rating and people seem to just go along with that. I thought Oliver was fab and that the story was sufficiently Retro Futuristic, A'la 70's style, to totally hook me when I first saw it on late night TV in the early 80's.

I loved the staging and the sets, right down to the funky white (read for sterile) outfits and the sociological fly on the wall insight into the lives of the two protagonists desperate to enrich their seemingly emtpy lives/failing relationship by breaking the ultimate taboo. I guess in many ways I was primed for this kind of thing by reading lots of Ray Bradbury growing up and I adored the stark funky realism of the whole gas and curfew thing!

Let me simply say that if you have an Arty eye towards Sci-Fi and the sociological, loved films like Soylent Green and Farenheit 451 then this movie will not dissapoint you! I loved it and I think *getting it* is...

Dour, bleak and of it's time...
This is an early 70's film that takes place in some unknown, futuristic society on earth. One might assume it's a future England, but there are enough Americans to make it seem it could be anywhere and that maybe so far in the future, borders and countries no longer exist. A totalitarian regime rules this society,it's leaders and enforcers hovering above the smog in some sort of flying machine that is all seeing/hearing and issues commands and announcements on a loudspeaker. To stop the total decline of society, birth is outlawed for 30 years and citizens wanting children are issued bizarre walking/talking dolls. Smoke and fog covers almost everything(which helps instead of building expensive sets)and we are shown museums which are propaganda driven to show the "evils" of the 20th century-one shows a family at a Thanksgiving table-with all kinds of burping and sounds of indigestion playing as visitors walk by and recieve lectures on how those indulgences led to the world they have...

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