At the Far East Film Festival in Udine, two films about fragility deserve attention. Watching films popular across the Far East is a useful way to notice how cinema there differs from the West—especially in how it handles disability and social inclusion.
The first makes history: after 25 editions, a Malaysian film wins top prize. Abang Adik, written and directed by Jin Ong, tells the story of two brothers—Abang and Adik—who share no blood relation but are bound by circumstance. Both lack identity documents. Stateless, they face the same struggles as undocumented migrants, living in grinding poverty. Abang is deaf, yet in their relationship of mutual dependence, it is Adik who needs the most help. Kang Ren Wu, who plays Abang, is a hearing actor trained in sign language: the deafness serves the story. You might expect this choice to underscore the young man's isolation from society—but he carries a high-quality hearing aid, grotesquely out of place in his world of misery. There's nothing wrong with a hearing actor playing a deaf character, but the choice should be justified by the script or the actor's talent, not seem like a way to pile on emotional weight. Still, Abang Adik deserves credit for its powerful portrait of the invisible people in Malaysian society—those we find in every country.
From Japan comes a film about a disturbing future. To manage an economic crisis fueled by violent generational conflict, the State offers free euthanasia to anyone over 75. Those who accept Plan 75 receive money—"some use it to pay for their funeral"—and are given a painless death at a dedicated facility. The film makes clear that such a policy becomes culturally acceptable because the Japanese people have always shown great willingness to sacrifice: consenting to death is even admirable. This realistic Japan, a total failure of social provision in an advanced nation, is told through three characters: an elderly woman (played by Baishō Cheiko, a Japanese actress and career prize winner) who, unable to find work, enrolls in Plan 75 but develops an unexpected and forbidden human bond with her telephone counselor; a man who works for Plan 75 and is assigned the case of an uncle he hasn't seen in years; and a Filipino immigrant who takes a job at a facility where the euthanasias are carried out.
The policy in Plan 75 seems to ignore individual circumstances entirely, suggesting there comes a moment when life loses value. Yet this is a film of deep humanity, one that maintains the restraint of the best Japanese cinema: it is the State that appears inhuman. But since a State is made up of its people, we understand that solidarity with the weak or the "expendable" must come from individuals themselves.
The debut feature of director Hayakawa Chie (who received special mention for the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 2022 and represented Japan at the Oscars), Plan 75 is now released in Italy as well. What strikes you is how familiar the problems are: low birth rates, an aging population, the strain on pension systems. Too familiar.