The Fossil

A Japanese drama. Itsuki heads the construction company he built himself. He is old, he has become rich, and he has put distance between himself and everyone around him. He goes to Europe on a business trip. He falls ill on the way, and the examination finds a fatal illness. The doctor tells him so; the concealment usual in Japan in those years does not happen here. From there the film is about how a man spends the time he has left. Itsuki does not abandon the trip; he stays in France, visits cathedrals, looks at stonework, and begins to see death in his own mind in the form of a woman. In the flashbacks are his working life, the war years and broken family ties. He is distant with his daughter and his relations with his partners are built on accounting. What the narrative is interested in is not fear but reckoning: the man counts what he has done and cannot remember what most of it was for. The source is a novel by Yasushi Inoue. It was first made as an eight-part television series, then re-edited into a film of over three hours; that is why the narrative is broad and unhurried. Shin Saburi plays Itsuki and won Japan's main acting prizes for the role. Keiko Kishi is in the cast. Masaki Kobayashi directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes slow, inward Japanese cinema. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot take the length; the film runs over three hours and there is almost no plot.