Plan 75

Director Chie Hayakawa tells three interlocking, allegorical stories set in an alternate modern Japan, where the elderly are given the option to euthanize themselves to stave off the country’s economic woes in return for a final sum of money they can spend however they want. —M.G.

A bold, frightening, and ultimately humane vision, PLAN 75 imagines a future that looks much like the present, but where the industrial quest for purpose and productivity takes on sinister endpoints. Michiko is a cleaning lady nearing her 80s, living a solitary life aside from a few friends and preparing to lose her job and home. An alternative broadcasts itself all around her: the government’s initiative for dealing with a mounting elderly population that allows them to be voluntarily euthanized. Elsewhere, others are caught in the dystopian bureaucracy of Plan 75, as the film thrillingly ponders the value of life beyond what is provided for the population. Equally tender and shocking, this film finds the seeds of dystopia in the culture of the present. —C.F.