In Fragments: An Idyllic Story, writer/director Toni Resende presents a series of experimental videos touching on the complexity of human nature. The experiment, Fragments, is an anthology of video essays spoken in the first person, and Resende then uses stock video footage from professional video libraries to construct his visual narrative.
Fragments: An Idyllic Story is comprised of twelve essays exploring different themes. The first is The Shed, an exploration of fear, empathy, and the dark secret we bury deep within our minds. Our protagonist is a secret that has been abandoned…the monster we’ve long forgotten about. Resende shifts between the monster and a young girl walking toward it.
In Age, Resende explores the realities of aging. As we grow older, our identity becomes intertwined with words like ‘elderly’ and ‘senior’. We tend to think more about life winding down than about what the future holds. Other episodes talk about anxiety, the rhythm of life, finding peace through meditation, and more.
“…each bite-sized essay… invites us into a headspace where vulnerability meets visual poetry.”
The best starving artists are those who find new and inventive ways to tell their stories using low-budget resources that are just lying around (or cheap on the Internet). For Toni Resende, Fragments was pulled from video stock footage and free music archives.
Each episode of Fragments runs around five minutes. Each monologue is spoken in the first person in a reflective tone about the video’s theme or mood. Each segment seeks to find empathy with the audience while being deeply grounded in emotion, as if to say, “I too feel the same way you do, as we’re all on this human journey together.” Resende hopes to make a connection rather than preach a sermon.
Fragments: An Idyllic Story reminds us that sometimes the most personal stories come from behind a keyboard and a well-stocked video library. With each bite-sized essay, Toni Resende invites us into a headspace where vulnerability meets visual poetry. It’s art as therapy, and in just five minutes per fragment, it manages to say what most feature films can’t in two hours.
The entire first season can be found on the YouTube channel Fragments: An Idyllic Story.
"…stories pulled from video stock footage and free music archives."
