The short stage approach, the Kristen Stewart-blockbuster superstar (the “Twilight” saga) and indie icon (“personal shoppers”)-before the world premiere of their directorial debut at the film festival in Cannes, felt half of the word “fuck” and ended with the request: ” fucking Watch the film! ” However, it took a while for the first picture to be turned over the screen on 16mm analogue material.The Chronology of Water“Are there astonishingly.
So is it so complicated even with such a big name to get the budget for an independent project that in the end has to be used for a dozen different donors? Probably already. At least if the meaning is not based on pleasing art house food, but according to radical art without any concession to the visual habits of the (mainstream) audience. Stewart worked on her film adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's autobiography of the same name for eight years – and judged from the result, she did not have a single compromise during this time.
The water and swimming are of central importance in the life of Lidia Yuknavitch (Imogen Poots).
Have you just put on reading because the name Lidia Yuknavitch tells you nothing? Don't worry, most of the people will hardly have been different. In “The Chronology of Water” (2011), the author, born in 1963, tells with a radical-fragmented profane poetry in a maximum-soul-blown manner, among others. From her abuse experiences by the father, her at the same time saving and destructive swimming career, her addictions, S/M pain therapy and miscarriage. This is painful, but at the same time a cult book in the classic sense, that is, only an American niche readers who are interested in independent or queer literature knows it, but they revered it all the more.
Kristen Stewart himself even referred to the book as a “holy text” – and also announced in interviews that as an actress, she would “make no further damn film before she did not make this film”. And this unconditional necessity can be noticed “The Chronology of Water”. Stewart shot in her career with master directors such as Olivier Assayas (“The Clouds of Sils Maria”), Pablo Larraín (“Spencer”) or David Cronenberg (“Crimes of the Future”) – so she had enough chances to take a look at something of the big ones. Instead, she has developed a completely own cinematic language for her directorial debut – one that is leaned onto the literary template without reservation.
A memory carpet of pain
The first of four chapters in which childhood and youth are in the center, almost like an experimental film, without classic scenes, but a series of memory. Stewart associated moods, scraps of memory and the body of her protagonist, which she literally takes a close look at the privacy and the body of her protagonist in staccato -proof, and thus broken down into its individual parts. Swimming and water play a central role in this-after all, the off-comment based on the template says at one point: “How many miles do you have to swim to arrive with yourself.”
In the later episodes, the reminded moments are becoming increasingly detailed, “The Chronology of Water” is at least a little closer in the direction of a classic cinema biography, but without ever having danger. And yet typical elements sneak into individual passages that are known from countless artists' biopics with addiction themes-even in this abstract narrative form. This genre trap cannot be completely avoided. But even then there is still imogenic poots (“Vivarium”) that throws upside down and without protection into the self -destructive role and thus delivers the clearly best performance of your career. Incidentally, the same applies to James Belushi, who steals pretty much every scene as “one flew over the cuckoo nest” author Ken Kesey, into the LSD-homely counterculture icon.
Conclusion: A congenial film adaptation of the autobiography of Lidia Yuknavitch – raw, angry, honest, poetic, fragmentary, overwhelming and fragile. Certainly not for everyone, possibly even only for (very) a few, but you simply feel that after eight years of work, this film had to be out of Kristen Stewart and had to go to the screen.
We saw “The Chronology of Water” at the film festival in Cannes 2025, where he celebrated his world premiere in the “Un Certain Regard” section.