It's a shame that while Fragment seems to be a latent classic, what frustrates is Hemmings' rather offbeat performance early on, rather at odds with the style and ambiance of the film. Also, the plot seems to be missing elements which were either cut, not filmed or deliberately left out to add to the jumbled nature of Tim's disintegration.
What is left is a paradigm of paranoid perfection with Tim's existential fate rendered powerless in the face of the crises his alternate path's absence creates.
His brain develops as many holes as he may have put in his arms, and he eventually disappears down a rabbit hole part Hitchcock, part Kubrick, part Antonioni.
The supporting cast are all exceptional with such household faces as Daniel Massey, Kenneth Cranham, Arthur Lowe and Philip Stone. Director Safarian was subsequently to make his best film Vanishing Point, placing Fragment as the nearly man in the careers of practically everyone involved.
If you enjoy your movies off centre and with a focus on style over substance, without paying consideration to tedious concerns like comprehensibility then you will find much to like here.
Review of Fragment of Fear
