The Chronology of Water

A body surfaces, disappears, looks for a hold in the water — a recurring motif and the great metaphor of Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s autobiographical novel of the same name. Its central figure, Lidia, grows up in 1970s Oregon in a home marked by violence and alcohol. A gifted swimmer, she finds refuge in the water, but on land she is close to breaking under other people’s expectations. Only in literature does she discover a language of her own — one that turns pain into meaning.

In five acts, Kristen Stewart tells of Lidia’s life and of the passages between drowning and surfacing, between body and consciousness. The 16mm camera stays close to her, following every tremor. Out of fragments of sound, light and language a filmic pulse emerges that turns the chaos of Lidia’s life into a groping, searching movement and makes closeness a physical experience. Water — sea, pool, bathtub — mirrors Lidia’s inner state, an element of liberation and of danger alike. And so the images flow into one another like memories, break apart, and form again.

Shown at the 2025 edition of Around the World in 14 Films, Berlin.

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