52 Films by Women Vol 9. 26. The Chronology of Water (Director: Kristen Stewart)
Pictured : Claudia ( Thora Birch , left) offers limited comfort to her traumatised sister Lidia ( Imogen Poots , right) in a scene from the film, ' The Chronology of Water ', adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch 's 2011 memoir by director Kristen Stewart . Still courtesy of Les Films Du Losange . For her feature debut as writer-director, actress Kristen Stewart has adapted Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, The Chronology of Water , an account published in 2011 of traumatic childhood and young womanhood from 1980 to the early 2000s. Both book and film are organised in five sections: ‘Holding Breath’, ‘Under Blue’, ‘The Wet’, ‘Resuscitations’ and ‘The Other Side of Drowning’. Stewart’s film is heavy on style: close-ups, match cuts, quick edits, flashes, fragmentation, voiceover. Such techniques can suggest inner torment – they do here – but also ward off empathy. Stewart is torn between showing Lidia (Imogen Poots) caught in the throes of trauma and illustrating her subjectivity through ...