The Chronology of Water

Lidia Yuknavitch was raised in a family torn apart by sexual violence and alcoholism, and seemed destined to dissolve into self-destruction and failure. But the aspiring writer finds unexpected freedom first in swimming, and then in writing. The Chronology of Water is an adaptation of Yuknavitch’s bestselling autobiographical novel that follows author and protagonist Lydia’s search for her own voice and explores how trauma can be transformed into art through the reappropriation of our own bloody histories, especially those that permeate the bodies of women and girls, emerging from their unique experiences.

For her directorial debut, the famous actress Kristen Stewart took on the demanding task of adapting the homonymous experimental prose and memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch, written in 2011, whose poetic immersion in sexual abuse and addiction is untranslatable to film language. But despite expectations, debutant Stewart has proven herself as a daring audiovisual esthetician with a flair for abstraction and elliptical storytelling that faithfully and consistently evokes the delirium of sadness and ecstasy of the source material. Shot on 16mm and assembled in a deliberately fragmented and disjointed montage mirroring fragmentality of memory, this impressionistic film follows Lydia, in a striking acting interpretation by Imogen Poots, through key moments of her life: from a traumatic childhood in a suburb in the Pacific Northwest, through her time spent in indoor pools and swimming competitions, to sexual experimentation and frenzied drug use that leads her to rehab every now and then. The narrative immerses us in Lydia’s stream of consciousness as Poots delivers a disarmingly stripped-down and fragile performance that viscerally evokes the immanent breakdown and inner turmoil of a woman who feels uncomfortable in her own body and yet struggles intensely to find a special peace of mind in that discomfort. Because as the heroine of the film, book and life herself says: “Memories are like stories, so you better make up one you can live with.”