Written and directed by Chloé Barreau, co-written by Marco Perez and Giulia Sbernini, while involved with someone, she was already fashioning her memory of it: filming, photographing, writing. How do her exes remember it, though? What do their versions tell us? Starring: Jeanne Rosa, Rebecca Zlotowski, Anne Berest, Jean-Philippe Raiche Ludger Beaulieu, Anna Mouglalis and Marco Giuliani.
The idea of scouring through a filmmaker’s love life over several decades, while chatting to their exes sounds as though it could create something inherently self-indulgent or vain. So, it’s all the more surprising to find that what Chloé Barreau has actually done is create something genuine, with charm and true emotion. Even before you’ve learnt much about Barreau’s romantic entanglements and conflicts, it’s already easy to see how impressive it is that she managed to get them all to agree to traipse through their past with such intimacy.
It’s fascinating to watch them reliving key moments in their romantic lives, especially as they do it in a casually revealing and charged manner. Not only that but it’s sincerely refreshing to see love and sex talked about with such natural fluidity, and representation of bisexuality. Those featured bring a really great personality to the film, they have a certain cheeky edge which is fun to watch. One that works all the more because it’s balanced with sincere emotion, you can honestly see what that time of their past meant to each and every one of them. As well as the size of the impact that the filmmaker had on them.
You wouldn’t be faulted for finding Barreau’s choice to so incessantly record her life and partners, it’s an interesting kind of compulsion. Though one that worked out well because having that mix of home movies and talking heads works really well. It helps to give a wider view and to get to grips more decidedly with the intimacy of it all. The flow and editing are also similarly strong, shifting the perspective from one ex to the next, but including all of them throughout, as to give it the feel of an organic conversation. Avoiding it simply feeling like a string of various anecdotes, instead a deep dive into the filmmaker’s behaviour and personality.
Fragments of a Life Loved is like watching the alt-perspective of a romcom, sitting down with each lover left behind on the protagonist’s journey. Chloé Barreau instils such a fun, charming personality into this intensely personal project. It’s rare to find a filmmaker able to take that big of a step back and look at their own life, flaws and heartbreak. There’s a surprisingly affecting amount of emotion and to explore these memories is unexpectedly touching.
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