The Fossil

Overview

An industrialist is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is abroad in Europe at the time, and a glimpse of a Japanese woman in that setting causes him to imagine her as the personification of his impending fate. As his dialogue with his imagined mortality continues, he meets the living woman, the template for his fantasy, and together, they tour rural churches. Gradually, he comes to some kind of peace about the diagnosis. When he returns to Japan, he is met with a series of challenges that profoundly test the lessons he has learned.

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

Top cast

Shin Saburi

Tajihei Itsuki

Keiko Kishi

Madame Marcelin

Hisashi Igawa

Funazu

Mayumi Ogawa

Akiko Itsuki

Komaki Kurihara

Kiyoko Itsuki

Kei Yamamoto

Akihiko Kishi

Orie Satō

Kishi's wife

Seiji Miyaguchi

Sunami

Haruko Sugimura

Itsuki's stepmother

Ichirō Nakatani

Taisuke (Itskuki's brother)

Yoshio Inaba

Toyoshima

S

Sue Mitobe

Itsuki family's maid

Jūkichi Uno

Tappei Yakubi

Shigeru Kōyama

Dr. Kihara

T

Tetsuo Hasegawa

Akiko's husband

Yūsuke Takita

Gō Katō

Narrator (voice)

Details