Kaseki (1975)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Masaki Kobayashi

Writers:

Shun Inagaki (screenplay)
Yasushi Inoue (novel)

Release Date:

9 September 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

7 wins

Cast

Shin Saburi	...	Tajihei Kazuki
Mayumi Ogawa	...	Akiko Kazuki
Keiko Kishi	...	Woman (Death)
Komaki Kurihara	...	Kiyoko Kazuki
Haruko Sugimura	...	Mother-in-law
Hisashi Igawa	...	Funazu
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tetsuo Hasegawa	...	Akiko's husband
Yoshio Inaba
Shigeru Kôyama	...	Kihara
Sue Mitobe
Seiji Miyaguchi	...	Sunami
Ichirô Nakaya	...	Taisuke, Tajihei's brother
Orie Satoh	...	Akihiko's wife
Yusuke Takita
Jukichi Uno	...	Tappei Yabuki
Kei Yamamoto	...	Akihiko Kishi

Also Known As:

Kaseki (USA)
The Fossil (USA)

Runtime:

200 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Haiyu-za Film Production Company Ltd.

Ashes to Fossils

When I saw this in its brief American release, I took the word of a Japanese-speaking guy at work, who didn't go to films but had seen the poster, that "kaseki" meant ashes. Heading a film that ends with a teary, agonized exclamation, it made sense; I took his word and never checked. "Ashes" carries a sense poetically similar to "fossil," and might have been subtler: ashes; tears; emotional entropy; fossil emotions. But my old dictionaries offer only "fossil," not even, I think, a homonym, though I could swear that somewhere on the poster was the four-stroke "hi" for fire. "Kaseki no mori," title of a Shinoda film two years earlier, means petrified forest. "Kaseki", which I've been desperate to re-see for 20 years or so is but didn't feel at all long, in crisp, if I recall, perfect color, fitting to the joy, yet ironic to the pall, cast by the story. The Paris sky may have been always or mostly overcast. (But see my mis-remembrance of the character Anne in "The Aviator's Wife".)

A by no means ancient, sixty-ish, businessman goes with a much younger subordinate to Paris on business. There he suffers an attack, diagnosed as terminal cancer. I can't recall whether before or after the diagnosis, he's attracted to the Japanese wife of a highly placed Frenchman, a striking woman who may be nearly as old as he is. The diagnosis gives him courage to befriend her. No one's likely to see this here, but I won't give away the shattering unguessable conclusion.

Actress Haruko Sugimura plays both the diplomat's wife and Death. Subiela's 1992 "El lado oscuro del corazón "is a touchpoint for "Kaseki "and I mention "Kaseki" in that review.