Fragments of a Life Loved (Frammenti di un percorso amoroso)

I don't know if...

if I want to love or be loved.

I guess it's the same thing, after all.

FRAGMENTS OF A LIFE LOVED

Who do our memories belong to?

I mean, when people divorce or split up.

Do we own our memories? We don't.

Can we prevent someone from having memories of us?

We can't.

We all make some small gestures

that originally didn't belong to us.

We had to love deeply to make them our own.

That's how we learn how to move.

It's...

It's for love.

Love has opened up my soul and my eyes more than anything else.

I haven't had that many, but I did have some.

And by the way, let's face it.

This "one true love" doesn't exist,

the one you can't lose, because there won't be another.

It's completely false. Luckily.

I had many love stories.

Some of them weren't love stories.

But I consider time in relation to love.

My personal chronology is based on romance,

more than in years or career achievements.

A love story doesn't just end one day when you say, "It's over".

I have never been able to break up with someone.

All of my exes were invited to my wedding.

SONY ROME asw 99 J. Phi / Kim / Nadia O I never speak with my ex-girlfriends.

I think they hate me.

You know?

A couple of them hate me, I'm sure of that.

I guess the others do too.

It's not something I hide

or that I somehow belittle.

Teen love shouldn't be...

shouldn't be considered as being less significant.

I could say it's the opposite.

Our high-school was in the Latin Quarter.

We could have been in any high-school, in any region in France.

It would've been the same. We were students.

We needed to get out, to dream, to love.

We were teenagers and those years are so powerful.

She was a friend of my older sister's.

I think the first time I met her

I must have been 14 or 15. We had some mutual friends.

She was popular in high-school

and we had friends in common.

I heard about her and I was quite curious.

For starters, she was part of our group

and she was the only girl.

I reckon every single one of the boys

fell in love with her, at some point.

But she chose me.

Oh, Sébastien! Well, that's Adam!

We go back to the first man. Sébastien is the Book of Genesis.

It all started with him.

If I had to sum up our love story in a couple words,

I'd say "first love".

When I first arrived to that big high-school in Paris

I definitely didn't fit the profile.

I came from the Parisian suburbs, I was an outsider.

I wasn't particularly serene, but I guess teenagers rarely are.

The only way to stand out, for me, was acting like a clown.

I think that's what she liked.

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

You joking?

Genius.

Hello, camera!

If I think about her, I think of the first time we held hands.

We'd been looking at each other for a while.

We were getting closer and our friendship was becoming something more.

I think it was during a History class. I wasn't paying attention.

I can't remember who made the first move,

but our hands touched lightly under the table.

Eventually, we held our hands.

It happened little by little.

My heart was pounding.

That's the memory I treasure the most. That moment.

She and I,

holding our hands in secret.

Just the two of us.

"Monday. March 9, 1992.

My dear Chloé,

I'm writing to you, as promised, but I don't know where to start.

I want to assure you I had a great summer.

Even if I'm sorry we aren't dating anymore,

I'm happy we're still friends.

I think of you a lot.

I don't know if I should write this, or still think that,

but I love you.

Sébastien."

I think that was the first time I experienced a break-up.

Our relationship had arrived to a dead end, somehow,

but not for me.

On the day of her 17th birthday, it happened.

We got back together.

We made love and I know it was her first time.

Our love story was made up of two phases.

The first year, I loved her and she didn't love me.

The following year, it was the opposite.

She was in love with me and I didn't know how to handle it.

She was the personification of attachment. She was so clingy.

Kidnap me!

Oh, my God! You want me to kidnap you?

Please!

- I can't! - Why not?

It was tricky. I wanted to hang with my friends,

but she would follow me wherever I went.

If we wanted to meet without her, we basically had to do it in secret.

It was unbearable.

It was over.

I guess I didn't say much. That's how I do.

I must have let the situation deteriorate.

I must have let it die out, so she came to talk to me.

She said something like, "What's happening to us?".

I must have looked down, going like, "Nothing's wrong...".

Yeah.

She must have found the words I couldn't find myself,

even if I wanted to.

If someone asked me to think about a friend of mine

who could make a movie on his or her life,

I would mention her straight away, obviously.

I'm jealous of what she's up to, but...

I would never dare to ask.

It's crazy she feels entitled to ask us.

However, once she asked, it was impossible to say no.

That's the trap,

the "moral trap" behind this request.

That's what she did in those years.

She documented her love life.

She filmed every moment, she kept every object,

she was taking pictures all the time.

In cafés, bars, restaurants, during a trip, in the car.

She always had her camera with her.

That was pretty strange, back then.

She always wanted to seize the moment.

To catch the moment, to grab it.

Clearly, there's a freaky side to this obsession for recording everything.

Often, when I'm at her place talking or doing stuff,

at a certain point I realise she's filming me.

I remember I felt very embarrassed by the presence of the camera.

It was a little objectifying.

A form of fetishism.

I remember her holding her camera. Her camcorder, actually.

Small cameras were just starting to spread.

She was using hers all the time.

I'm sure that what makes someone perfect...

You're perfect when you accept yourself as you are.

Accepting yourself means being unhappy.

- Why? I don't get it. - Being at ease with yourself is very hard.

There's some things you can't accept.

I accept everything.

We met in preparatory class, just after high school.

We were 18 years old.

We immediately got along.

I wanted to be a good student,

and yet, I wanted to show all of those good students

that I couldn't care less if I wasn't as good as them.

Go for it, Jeanne!

Dummies!

We were a gang, we were always together.

We would spend the weekends at her place.

We weren't eating that well.

We were watching movies.

We danced.

Her parents weren't home. We could do whatever we wanted.

Joking, smoking, drinking gin and tonics.

Do you feel you're fragile?

No. I may be wrong, but I don't feel I'm fragile.

Don't you think being fragile makes you tough?

That's a Chloé Barreau kind of question!

I don't know. Maybe.

How was that? I'm tough 'cause I'm fragile?

Did something happen between us?

No.

Anyway,

nothing like a love story.

We were very close friends.

Do you think I'm tough?

Well, you're a snob.

She was going there without really doing it.

She wasn't completely comfortable with her thoughts.

Let me announce Chloé's idea.

A two-way psychoanalysis.

In my opinion, it's impossible.

Did you watch Sex, Lies, and Videotape?

I love that Jeanne is playful. And I hate that she is.

I love that she's cruel. And I don't like it.

Everything I love about her, I also hate.

And everything I hate, I love.

It's annoying!

I wouldn't be surprised if someone told her,

"You like girls."

And that she answered, "No way, why are you saying that?".

Even if she'd totally understand where the question came from.

You have an unusual relationship with Jeanne.

No, really.

I'll answer.