Plan 75

With the ever ageing population putting considerable pressure on the resources of the Japanese government, they pass legislation that will allow any citizen over the age of seventy-five to apply for an assisted suicide programme. They will get $1,000 and an all expenses paid, group, cremation. "Hiromu Okabe" (Hayato Isomura) is a young man charged with the administration of applications and he encounters "Michi" (Chieko Baishô). This is a lady still pretty sound of mind and body, but who is alone. She feels her existence is a burden, her home is soon to be demolished and it's fair to say that she sees little purpose in continuing to go through the motions. The young man also encounters an elderly gentleman - his estranged uncle "Yukio" (Take Takao) who is of a similar state of mind and although he cannot deal with this case directly, this triumvirate of individuals serve as a potent conduit for some thought-provoking cinema. "Hiromu" treats 'Plan 75" (curious that it is titled and branded in English) as a job. He has little personal investment in any of his clients - until, that is, he faces some personal conflict. Meantime, "Michi" has been chatting to a young lady who is on the telephone for support purposes and gradually their chatting leads to a bond and perhaps she begins to have doubts? As the threads gather together the film starts to become faintly silly - the ending is flawed on quite a few levels for me - practical and philosophical, but this story still offers us food for thought as we consider just how arbitrary age is when we evaluate suitability for things. Society uses it all the time - when we can start doing something and when we ought to stop. It rarely, if ever, looks at the particulars of the individual - it just makes simplistic generalisations. This film goes some way to challenging that perspective and though I was quite disappointed with it's lack of focus and slightly meandering narrative, Baishô and Isomura deliver well and it's certainly something to think about.

I really like the premise of this film. Given Japan's problems with an ageing population this was the perfect country for this movie to be set.

I feel though that it was a missed opportunity. This is because there was no real in-depth conversations about why the country needed to introduce Plan 75. Similarly it wasn't shown how the country was benefiting from it.

No one debated the morals and ethics of it either.

I kept waiting for people to discuss the core issues of Plan 75 but it never came. Instead we see people living depressing lives who consider Plan 75 because living has become so hard.

Why not have someone who is doing quite well but shocks their family by choosing Plan 75 because they see it as doing the right thing for the country?

Or show some young people that need medical attention but cannot get it because all the medical resources have been consumed by the elderly and hence why Plan 75 has become so important.

Anyway I really wanted to like this movie but unfortunately it missed the opportunity to delve into the deeper aspects of what Plan 75 would mean.

Plan 75: A future Japan where the elderly are offered voluntary euthanasia to deal withe strain of an ageing population. They'll even throw in free cremation and interment. As the narrative unfolds though we see there are subtle pressures placed on older people, they are still working into their 70s, even at manual outdoor jobs, they lack security of tenure in their homes. They are not made into Soylent Green but even their last moments lack the dignity which was offered in that film. They also face violence, the opening scene a middle- aged man shoots his wheelchair bound parent and then commits suicide. The widespread nature of the threat is subtly alluded to. While senior citizens are seen as disposable, immigrant Filipino workers are used as cheap labour as caregivers. Some deeply personal stories are related as characters challenge roles which seem preordained. It's a plausible scenario as Plan 75 also offers a kind of Anti-Samaritans talkline where lonely old folk may discuss their woes. A disturbing film which ypu will mull over long after the credits have rolled. Directed and co-written by Chie Hayakawa. 8/10.

By a large margin, Japan is the nation with the oldest population in the world, which has dire economic consequences in the future. Director/screenwriter Chie Hayakawa drew on this burgeoning reality and fashioned this quietly provocative 2022 character drama based on the dystopian idea of Plan 75, a government program that gives people 75 or older the option of euthanized suicide. It's a macabre (though not far-fetched) concept that Hayakawa cleverly turns into a subtle thriller based on the power of mass suggestion. The main protagonist is Michi, a lonely 78-year-old hotel cleaner who suddenly loses her job and her home, making her a prime candidate for the program. There are other key characters - a young, conflicted Plan 75 employee and a Filipina service worker who helps dispose the remains - but the focus is primarily on Michi played affectingly by Chieko Baisho. To its detriment, the film has a relentlessly somber tone. It could've benefited from a few scares or even laughs. There were just too many lengthy silent shots of Michi contemplating her fateful decision.

The opening scene of "Plan 75" is very scary. It consists of a suicide attack on a Japanese nusring home to draw attention to the fact that elderly people (in the eyes of the perpetrator) put too heavy a burden on the Japanese economy and the younger generations.

After this shocking opening the film slows down. The Japanese government starts a program in which citizens from age 75 onwards can opt for free euthanasia. The film folows two participants and three employees of this program.

The film deserves high praise for the courage to select such a controversial topic. Speaking of the Dutch context, beginning with a situation in which euthanasia was only possible in the last stage of an incurable illness the scope of euthanasia has grown wider and wider. As a result the judgement of the patient has grown in importance versus the judgement of the physician.

In "Plan 75" there is no judgement of a physician at all. Everybody above 75 who wants an euthanasia can get it for free. It then becomes crucial that the free will of the participants really is their free will, and in this respect the film succeeds in sowing the necessary doubt. The main motives of the two participants are poverty, loneliness and a feeling of guilt towards the younger generation. The first two may result from cuts in government spending on social welfare, the last one has more to do with social pressure than with free will.

Maybe even more interesting than the participants are the employees of the Plan 75 program. In the film there are three of them: a recruiter, a call center agent and someone sorting out the belongings of the already dead participants. What is it like to recruit someone for his own dead? What sort of people have 5 minute conversations with participants with the explicit assignment to prevent withdrawals (to which participants are legally entitled) at all costst? The disturbing answer is that the employees are normal, even nice, people doing their job and earning a living. It nearly reminded me about what Hannah Arends had to say about the banality of evil.

Only when they are confronted with an ethical complication the employees wake up and begin to ask themselves questions. In the film the recruitment employee gets his own uncle as one of his clients and the call center agent meets with her own client in real life (what the program strictly forbids).

As I said at the beginning of this review, after a scary opening scene the tempo of the movie slows down. One can even ask the question if it doesn't slow down too much. I am not a fan of movies going in the overdrive, but this movie presents a very controversial topic in a way that makes it almost natural. On the other side one can also argue that this is precisely a strong point of the movie. It is for everybody to decide for oneself on this issue. I have not made my final judgement on this point yet.

In my reviews I like to make comparisons with other movies. For "Plan 75" a comparison with "The ballad of Narayama" (1958, Keisuke Kinoshita & 1983, Shohei Imamura) is very obvious. These films are about the Japanese mythical custom of "Ubasute" in which an elderly person (in the films of age 70) is carried to the top of a mountain to die. The elderly people in these films are putting pressure not so much on the social welfare system (the films are situated in the middle ages) but on the food supply.

Given the above comparisons one can wonder if "Plan 75" is a film specific to the Japanese context. I am afraid it is not. Yes, Japan is one of the most aged countries in the World, but it certainly is not the only aging country. Yes, the Japanese people do have a collectivist culture with a tradition of self-sacrifice for the group. Remembering the discussions around old people occupying an intensive car bed during the Covid crisis also this sentiment is not only applicable in Japan.