The Japanese film director Chie Hayakawa was germinating the idea for a screenplay when she decided to test out her premise on elderly friends of her mother and other acquaintances. Her question: If the government sponsored a euthanasia program for people 75 and over, would you consent to it?
"Most people were very positive about it,” Hayakawa says. "They didn’t want to be a burden on other people or their children.”
To Hayakawa, the seemingly shocking response was a powerful reflection of Japan’s culture and demographics. In her first feature-length film, "Plan 75,” which won a special distinction at the Cannes Film Festival this month, the government of a near-future Japan promotes quiet institutionalized deaths and group burials for lonely older people, with cheerful salespeople pitching them on the idea as if hawking travel insurance.