France has produced a lot of drama films such as Le Piscine and Amour. Their drama and our drama are often billed as parallel lines, never meeting. This isn’t the case. After all, despite cultural influence, at the very crux of humanity is wild drama firing inside all of us. Alex Walker’s Fossil comes lauded as reminiscent of French classic thrillers and such. Though the connotations are there, it seems wrong to truly tar it this way, when it fact it is a brilliant exercise in human excavation…
There is some astonishing bubbling emotion, threatening to spill over with Andrew Walkers impressive fete. Played effectively well by actors, Fossil’s dynamics come from this nouvelle relationship usurping Paul and Camilla’s relationship. Punching Paul’s nose thoroughly out of joint, the drama is, the turmoil comes from, not from the fresh and close partnership, but because the British couple have failed to resolve everything. They are incidentally pulled apart when they are supposed to be coming together and when Julie and Richard arrive, they are reminded of their waning love. The cast are wonderfully strong, allowing the stiffness of the British couple to be natural and the frivolity of the other pairing to not seem caricature. The drama becomes overwrought, awkward and sometimes brutal. Underlying this is one of the most tantalising bits of score from Patrick Burniston that highlights the embittered feelings going on underneath the surface that spills over.
Fossil is a genuinely good film at times and is held together by intriguing circumstances, strong acting and compelling characters. The story may jump the shark at the end, but ultimately the work here is good enough to put the actors, the director and the exquisite score on the map. Fossil is certainly one to check out and as a drama, it is a magnificent look at how idyllic French cinema cannot mask the bubbling feuds. After all, holidays are not the salvation of love. They are the melting pot of visceral and undeniable strain. On those merits is where Fossil works best.