Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s haunting memoir of the same name, doesn’t even think about pulling its punches. Entirely yielding to the affective quality of the story at hand, Stewart lets the trauma that chases Lidia through much of her life devour the very fabric the film is captured and edited on. We oscillate between different scenes and memories with no regard for any logic-based chronology or audiovisual continuity, as Imogen Poots’ disembodied voice drifts through the corners of the room while audio tracks are cut off or trip over themselves. Even what looks like black mold burns itself into the edges of many of the film’s shots.
Stewart wastes no time to establish herself as an excitingly expressive voice in the director’s chair, and expects her audience to keep pace with her hypersensory style from minute one. She and her editor Olivia Neergaard-Holm orchestrate an audiovisual symphony guided by sensory logic, as scratches of pencils on paper coalesce into rhythm and drops of water float across human skin in close-ups. At the start of the film, Lidia invites us into her trauma with the words: “It’s all a series of fragments, repetitions, pattern formations.” And Stewart makes good on the film these words promise.
Corey C. Waters’ camerawork impresses with its versatility. Once the film slows down during its second act, she captures some wonderful images of the writer’s retreat Lidia finds herself at. But mostly the film concentrates on the intimate and specific, the kind of details you remember without really knowing why. We get introduced to Lidias abusive father via the clench of his jaw. And once his entire face makes it into the frame, her camera is transfixed by Michael Epp’s piercing and empty eyes, emanating the kind of inhumane coldness otherwise only found in CGI resurrections of deceased actors. Stewart’s script spares us explicit depictions of Lidia’s dad raping her – the silver screen already has far too many vile scenes like that on offer. But the destructively conflicting mix of loathing and need for approval that rises out of that pain seeps deep into Lidias’ psyche.
After leaving her toxic home to attend college, she is desperate to fill her inner emptiness. Competitive swimming makes for a good reality escape, but sex, drugs and parties prove to be more enticing. Lidia even finds a singer-songwriter boyfriend, who soon turns into the first of several marriages. Their relationship doesn’t last long, however, as his taciturn nature only makes Lidia’s demons stand out more violently by contrast. Only once she moves in with her older sister Claudia does Lidia find some calm.
Thora Birch makes the scars Claudia carries underneath her soothing appearance regularly peek through, a vivid counterpart to Imogen Poots’ far more physical (though just as great) performance as Lidia. They both harmonize well with Stewart’s script, which sketches Lidia’s development through individual, equally poignant and chaotic moments. These scene-fragments radiate with expressiveness, with the editing providing flash-forwards that only last seconds and Stewart infusing the film’s use of colors with heavy emotion. Though the spaces in between are left to the audience to fill – potentially with their own experiences. It’s only when Stewart leans into feelings of introspection and melancholy that her eclectic style of filmmaking fails to support her emotional vision.
Lidia’s voice-over, which contributes to the film’s soundscape at least as much as it does to its story, lends the whole film a feeling of inevitability. Her battles are never-ending, but the knowledge that Lidia Yuknavitch is still alive and has turned her past into a successful memoir provides an emotional safety net for the viewer. The longer the film goes on for, the more it focuses on her writing – the blank page as a welcome invitation to express and sort one’s feelings, the snippets we get to hear of her texts are bursting with raw emotion. So even when the manic energy of the film gets dialed up again, now conveying the exasperation that comes with such deep-seated trauma, she has something to hold onto that’s less elusive than water.
There isn’t a moment in The Chronology of Water where Stewart’s turn towards the director’s chair doesn’t feel organic – doubly so with how personal the film undoubtedly is for her. She arrives behind the camera with infectious force, fully committed to the perspective of her protagonist, who’s wrestling with alcoholism and afraid of what she’ll find once the world stops spinning. Affect, memory and association unwaveringly guide Stewart through the film. The positively erratic storytelling forgoes forcing Lidia’s experiences into a corset that can’t contain them, while also never pretending to capture more than just flashes of her story. It’s exciting to imagine what else Stewart has to offer.