Following one character out of a scene had been a common device in Hollywood filmmaking for decades, but Preminger uses it with such systematic care often without cutting that it comes to represent this world's underlying instability. When a group breaks up, his camera follows their bodies, twisting first one way, then another. Eventually the viewer sees every static composition as founded on shifting sand a momentary configuration of relationships and emotions that's bound to change. This approach makes even the affectionate father-daughter bond seem strangely impermanent though of course the film's flashbacks also reveal that their relationship has weakened. Raymond and Cecile's bond survives only because each allows the other multiple romantic partners.
Fragmentation occurs in various ways in the film's key scenes.
When Raymond tells a lie to conceal his planned meeting with Elsa, he's one of three people shown at lunch, but he soon wanders off into the background. When Cecile has second thoughts and contemplates ending her scheme, she stands against a wall to the right in a geometric image that shows Anne seated in a window to the left, then suddenly rising and going outside, where she appears on Cecile's right and moves into the foreground and then walks away. Just before Raymond and Cecile see Philippe and Elsa lying together literally at their feet, they take a twisting path through the woods, which the camera records in a diverse mix of movements and positions, finally filming them from slightly above. Eventually one starts to notice small asymmetries even in the static shots a slight high angle here, a slight obliqueness there. These perspectives open up a gap between the camera and the characters, implying that the composition we see is only a momentary arrangement of bodies in a wider, freer space.