Kristen Stewart throws you into the deep end | The Chronology of Water (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts - video Dailymotion

Film Brain

Film Brain reviews Kristen Stewart's directorial debut, which is raw, edgy, and breaks the rules so much that it borders of experimental, and trusts you can swim.

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00:00Kristen Stewart makes a boldly edgy directorial debut with the chronology of water.

00:05Imogen Poots's Lydia accepts a scholarship to become a competitive swimmer and the water is

00:09her only solace from the monstrous abuse she and her sister Thora Birch endured from their father

00:14Michael Epp. When she loses her scholarship due to her addictions, Lydia is on a troubled path

00:19until she enrolls with the University of Oregon to become a writer, allowing her a way to process

00:24what has happened to her. This is based on Lydia Junknevich's memoir The Same Name,

00:29whose cover I cannot show in this video, and Stewart's movie is far from a conventional

00:33first film for an actor turned director. Shot on grainy 16mm, I was fascinated by the way the

00:39film is structured and edited in a quite fragmented way that uniquely places you into Lydia's mind

00:44and is borderline experimental at times. Stewart practically throws you in at the deep end,

00:50especially at the start, where it's almost like a dam of emotions bursting and overwhelming you.

00:55Naturally water is the main recurring motif where Lydia feels most comfortable and a surface that

01:00allows her to reflect. And the movie's editing feels like waves, memories and trauma crashing into

01:06each other so sounds and dialogue are repeated and overlapped and the same goes for shots which are

01:11sometimes out of order or jump backwards. Certain images and noises, pencils on paper, water bubbling,

01:18blood pouring are played over and over again to almost overstimulate the viewer, although light

01:24leaks become a somewhat overused effect. Pootie's voiceover helps tie the disparate images together,

01:29even if it's occasionally a little arched and portentious, like listing the definition of the

01:33name Philip, played by Earl Cave, her first husband, or lines like, I'm not talking out of my asshole.

01:40But stick with it and the waters do start to calm around the midway point where Lydia discovers writing,

01:45and it becomes more controlled and structured as she finds her expression and meaning.

01:50I can easily see people finding this off-putting and even pretentious as it leans hard into being

01:55a capital A art film, but I thought it largely succeeded and there's a heavy emphasis on memory

02:01and the construction of narrative and the stories we tell ourselves. The often underrated Imogen Poots

02:07also impresses in a difficult and emotionally draining role as Lydia goes through so many terrible

02:13things, including addiction and stillbirth. Poots is determined to follow Lydia wherever she goes,

02:18even as she can be quite abrasive in her trauma and self-hatred. Because the movie is so in Lydia's

02:24head, you rarely get a sense of most of the people outside of it, the rare exception being Jim Belushi's

02:29key role as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey, who steals much of his relatively brief screen time

02:35when Lydia joins his graduate workshop and he becomes her mentor.

02:39I do think Stewart as a writer and director tries to tackle too much and sometimes the ideas aren't

02:44always coherent, but it is clearly deeply personal and admirably unafraid to be messy and confrontational.

02:51It's a hard watch that will be divisive, but this is a movie that frankly doesn't give a

02:56fuck what you think of it.

Kristen Stewart throws you into the deep end | The Chronology of Water (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts

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