Direction: Chie Hayakawa
Country: Japan
Named after a controversial if imaginary bill passed by the Japanese government, Plan 75 opens with a suicide, which, according to the suicider is a brave act, for the country and toward a brighter future. This pathos-filled drama is about aging, loneliness, exclusion, and death. The film’s depressing tones are ceaseless and the rhythm often crumbles within its schematic structure.
Co-wrote by Jason Gray and debutant director Chie Hayakawa, the story follows three individuals whose paths cross at some point due to this particular program. We have Michi Kakutani (Chieko Baisho), a lonely widow who is forced to retire at the age of 78 with no means of survival; Hiromu Okabe (Hayato Isomura), a young Plan 75 salesman who unexpectedly connects with an estranged uncle; and Maria (Stefanie Arianne), a Filipino nurse desperate to collect funds for the expensive surgery of her little daughter.
Japan has the fastest aging population in the world and the idea of not disturbing anyone is especially strong among the Japanese elderly. Working from there, Hayakawa mounts achingly poignant situations, though not particularly memorable as they tend to miserabilism. A quiet intensity and elegiac melancholy pervades the scenarios of a chamber film whose feelings and textures didn’t always resonate with the expected emotional weight. Most likely, the audience will remain at a distance, both physical and emotional, but the inner journeys are made vivid by purely filmic means.
One can find discreet compassion without condescension; and that’s positive. However, some of the parts are more engrossing than the whole.
