Plan 75 – The first “shocking” film at the Cannes Film Festival

According to Vulture, one of the best things about the Cannes Film Festival is the opportunity to see unknown talent “bud”. During the movie premiere Plan 75 by Chie Hayakawa, many experts consider this work to have the power to “corrosion” the viewer’s soul, a specialty of Japanese films.

Before the movie began, Hayakawa took to the stage to admit that “my heart was beating really fast” to the audience’s reaction. She said she worked for many years to make the film come out. Referring to the beginnings of this work was a short film in 2018 with the same title, part of an anthology entitled Ten years of Japan. By the end of the film, many viewers were moved to tears.

Plan 75 begins with an explosion (literally) but unfolds with chilling flair. It’s a mournful wail, with minimal dialogue and gentle poetic realism that makes the viewer feel like future plans aren’t too far away. The film is set in a version of Japan, where facing a rapidly aging population that is “draining financial resources”, the Government decided to give everyone over the age of 75 the option (optional, but strongly recommended) to get free death. Newsletters of the newspaper Dietetics The policy is “controversial” but mostly accepted by a culture with a “history of sacrifice” and “assaults on the elderly” across the country, explained.

Plan 75: “Explosion” at Cannes Film Festival

The film follows three main characters: Michi (Chieko Baishô), a graceful, proud 78-year-old maidservant who lives an unremarkable but independent life, experiencing happy moments before she dies. quit his job and fell into deep loneliness; Hiromu (Hayato Isomura), a young recruitment officer of Plan 75, who gradually realizes the horror of what he is doing when he comes into contact with his elderly uncle. The character Maria (Stefanie Arianna Akashi), a Filipino woman who starts the film as a carer for the elderly but her daughter’s failing health forces her to take a well-paid position. than in Plan 75.

Hayakawa presents the lives of each of her characters and the realities around them without the slightest hint of fiction, horror or melodrama and the movie is better for that. Although very clearly targeted to criticize society, our current culture of individualism and detachment in the face of total Government abandonment is by no means convincing. dogma, dogma in the movie. Before the film festival, Hayakawa told CHEAP that, she was inspired to make the film after returning to Tokyo from New York and feeling shocked by “how intolerant Japan has become… There is a new idea of ​​”self-responsibility” is being talked about everywhere, and the implication seems to be that marginalized people should find ways to protect themselves.”

Specifically, Hayakawa said that she was moved to write the film after the tragic 2016 Sagamihara case in Tokyo where a young man killed 19 people at a disabled home and said he was trying ” ease the burden” on their families: “I was very angry and thought, if Japan accelerates on this path without forgiveness, what will it become?”.

Plan 75 returned to the idea of ​​the elderly as a burden many times over. Michi and her friends discuss their death plan happily, as a way to ensure a better future for their grandchildren. Michi slowly accepts her fate as she realizes that the social system isn’t set up to help her survive. But in the later part of the movie, when Michi makes an illegal friendship with the young agent of Plan 75who was hired to convince her to die.

Plan 75 also a movie about the small, delicate moments that are the highlight of life and give it meaning: enjoying delicious sushi, opening the window at work to admire the beautiful scenery , slept on a friend’s mattress. Hayakawa wants to remind us of humanity, the need for collectivism and community, and prevent us from allowing political leaders to reduce the human condition to a single number on a spreadsheet.