As Japan¡¯s population grays, domestic films about the problems of the elderly ¡ª and dystopian responses to them ¡ª have proliferated. Chie Hayakawa¡¯s ¡°Plan 75¡± (2022) imagines a near-future in which the government encourages senior enrollment in an assisted suicide program. And in Banmei Takahashi¡¯s ¡°Euthanasia Special Zone¡± (2026), Japan has legalized active euthanasia.
Koki Yoshida¡¯s ¡°The A-Care: Disusebody¡± posits yet another sinister solution for dealing with inconvenient elders: Cut off their limbs. But the film is not straight-up body horror. Scripted by Yoshida from Yo Kusakabe¡¯s 2003 debut novel of the same Japanese title, it is more of a chillingly dark social drama based on the author¡¯s experiences as a practicing physician.?
Restrained and austere, with the camera dollying slowly in or out like a microscope bringing bacteria into sharper focus, the film feels eerily drained of emotion ¡ª somewhat like its protagonist, Shota Sometani¡¯s cool, calm and creepy Dr. Tadashi Urushibara.?
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