The Chronology of Water

Beautifully shot and directed and portrayed. The zoom in made wonderful job to feel the depression and pain going through the character even although it has disturbing content. The flashbacks and diluted memories refers to the torturing experiences and scars didn't heal at all leading to annoying decisions and questioning behavior of broken confused spirits.

Kristen Stewart's directorial debut is a hard movie to watch, and that's what she intended. The Chronology of Water is unsettling and disturbing and succeeds at getting a reaction out of an audience. It's a movie that is purely based on emotion and lacks a central story or plot. It dives into dark themes without saying very much or having a message about the themes it's exploring. I can appreciate what Stewart was going for but I can't say I was particularly engaged. It definitely felt slow and dragged for me. There's some unique and cool editing and sound design. Overall there is actually a lot to like here, but it didn't entirely work for me. 6/10.

I'm just back from Deauville where I had the chance to watch a few premieres including this one. And let's get a few things out of the way. I love Kristen Stewart , I'm also queer and feminist, I also have experienced abused and addiction and so I feel like I have a lot of empathy for those topics. Lastly, I am as well completely in love with Imogen Poots and feel like she has yet to have roles align with her talents.

I usually appreciate biopic and drama and as much as I really appreciate how the character grow and what she is going through the directing and editing were atrocious. Let's begin: Half if not 2/3 of the movie has a voice over ... at times it does what it is intended to do, provide clarity to what we're seeing but as a lot of teacher would tell you: show us don't tell. It's so overused that it dissociate us from what's happening and yes she is mostly going through her life dissociated but if you're viewer get that feeling well, how are we supposed to connect with the film?

All along the movie the sound or voice is juxtaposed with a different image (taken from another moment) at times and use scarcely it shows the character difficulty to be in the moment .. but when you over used the way it's done here it becomes sloppy , intense and so whiny.

Editing wise the rapid cuts and flash of lights again used to demonstrate the pain the character is in is sooo overused ; we get it! She's in pain!

The directing itself starting at first with the 3/4 ratio well I'm sorry but beside being annoying for a lot of theatre is so pompous especially when it's a debut movie.

The shots lacks purpose and again feels messy and quite crass - the book and obviously the scenario already are , I'm not sure the shots needed to be as well.

Good acting and good music but overall I would say the story wasn't elevated by this movie and left us quite at a distance with it's characters. There's room for improvement so I'm looking forward to the next one.

I saw this movie a few hours ago and loved how it uses nearly every tool in the filmmaker's cookbook. It feels avant-garde at times-voice-over, bold sound choices, wild editing-yet remains immersive, emotional, and engaging. The layered story, taboo-breaking, shock-feminism, and economical dialogue are impressive; much is conveyed with very few words. The character focus is so strong you barely notice the lack of establishing shots. There's a brief section in a Ken Kesey-style writing workshop where there's less tension and things feel slightly more generic, but it still works well. Overall, it's a bold, beautiful film that looks very good too.