For some time now, genre cinema has been warning us about the greatest fear of our society: getting older. Movies like ‘Grandma’, ‘Time’, ‘Relic’, ‘X’ or the more than underlined ‘Old People’ show that the elderly have become a perfect breeding ground to terrorize the youngest.
‘Plan 75’ is a new twist on this systemic fear that reflects on voluntary euthanasia in a system in which we have stopped feeling useful: If we are afraid of growing old in an individualistic world where you are only worth what you produce, why not nip it in the bud?
Get out of the way in style
In ‘Plan 75’, faced with the aging of the population, Japan approves that those over 75, even if they do not have any type of disease, can apply to a program to die and thus leave a world with fewer burdens, more money and youth. In exchange, they will receive a thousand dollars to spend before the moment itself. The plot may sound dystopian to us, but it is sufficiently explained and reasoned that we do not see a future solution: where we could have one more episode of ‘Black mirror’, the film goes one step further.
The most interesting thing about ‘Plan 75’ is what is told only in passing: how, before the decree that urges the elderly to commit suicide, Capitalist companies start looking for ways to make money off of deatheither with luxury resorts where you can spend your last hours (and that include services such as a “farewell photo”) or with new and creative ideas to recycle the mortuary ashes. It is a reality check as effective as it is painful which reminds us that in a world of banknotes and executives, even your death can be capitalized.
Sadly, not all the film is equally subtle and successful, and gets lost telling different more or less interconnected stories. Pretending to touch all the edges of this world, she blurs her gaze and loses strength. Of course, in the world that arises, the more information we have, the better we can understand the decisions of those who decide to use the service, but the tape insists on making a history of crossed lives that is not necessary: the main plot should be that of the one who makes the decision to die, and the rest simply accessories. Putting them on the same level and dedicating the same screen time to them is foolish.
die (or not)
The subtle, tender and heartbreaking interpretation of Chieko Baisho is one of the key points of ‘Plan 75’. Her character, who tries to cling to life as best she can in a world that despises the elderly and relieves her to an uninteresting corner, ends up throwing herself into the government program not out of sheer conviction, but out of simple discard. And when she is already fully involved in it, his confidence is shattered in one of the best-acted roles of the year.
‘Plan 75’ is wrong, yes, by not showing more about the social reaction to the program. Internationally, we are told, countries cast their eyes on Japan, but there is no demonstration of rejection or support among the people beyond the moral and internal doubts of the protagonists: the film would have gained a lot of interest if, beyond the decisions of this group of characters, we knew what is the general feeling of an Asian society who have traditionally adored their elders.
Chie Hakayama’s movie intended as a moral warning from the dark places where a society based on contempt for the weakest and that trivializes aging and death can take us, but can’t always hit the right keys: ‘Plan 75’ has findings (that last phone conversation), but it’s not the great movie it could be.
Road to the Oscars
Japan has chosen ‘Plan 75’ as the film that represents them at this year’s Oscarswith all eyes on her after the success of ‘Drive my car’ in 2021. Not that the Japanese country has a great love affair with the Academy Awards (it has only won two, last year’s and ‘ Farewells’ in 2008), and honestly, it doesn’t look like the trend is going to change with this movie. It lacks tenderness, subtlety, criticism and sharpness.
And yet, when he succeeds, he does it in style. The moment in which we are shown the enclosure where the elderly are going to die, in a long row separated only by curtains, is as chilling as, in a post-pandemic context, very real. ‘Plan 75’ would not exist, or at least not in this way, without the Covid, which should have reorganized our way of seeing life but, instead, has made us more oblivious to pain, less sensitive, less people. The film embraces the few moments in which the gray government environment gives way to feelings, but even so, it is much colder (and perhaps less parodic) than it should be.
There are times when we get a glimpse of what ‘Plan 75’ could have become. The man, doing the paperwork for his euthanasia, turning off the television where commercials in favor of the plan are broadcast non-stop; the telephone operator remembering that they can back out whenever they want; the discovery that companies are cashing in on mortality… But, despite its good ideas and its necessary message, the film never finishes giving the final blow on the table and it stays in a somewhat tasteless dough made with the best possible ingredients. A missed opportunity.