The film is based on Élisabeth Fanger's autobiographical story, J'Avais Dix Huit Ans of (translated as either "I was 18" or possibly "When I was 18"). She was 18 and in her last year of high school when she fell in love with Sid Mohamed Badaoui, a bank robber. She was still 18 a few months later when she fled with her lover and started her 2 years as a fugitive in Spain, Morocco and Greece.
Along with Garrel's more notable effort, Les Amants Réguliers, these two French filmmakers (both over 60 years old) might be trying to re-live their youth and make a film they could have made 30 or 40 years before. They aspire to create cinema like the best of the French filmmakers a few years their senior, but fail to note that these successful French film makers from the 60's and 70's made deeply personal films. It's not the pacing of the efforts that is at fault, but a lack of anything concrete to say. Just a long dose of ennui with a little existential nausea thrown in for good measure.
