Kristen Stewart's directorial debut is the surprise of the Cannes Film Festival

Special Envoy to the Cannes Film FestivalAt only thirty-five years old Kristen Stewart He's been many things: teen idol mainstream, a rebellious indie icon adored by cinephiles, an LGBTI icon of contemporary cinema... But starting with this Cannes Film Festival, we must add a new category: a director with talent, sensitivity, and daring. The chronology of water, her directorial debut, was screened Friday night in the parallel section Una Certa Mirada. "Let's get to the point and watch the damn movie!" exclaimed Stewart to open the screening. The anxiety to share it was natural. Stewart has been preparing the film since 2017, when she read Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir about her childhood marked by sexual and psychological abuse from a tyrannical father, from which she escaped by falling into a self-destructive spiral of substance abuse, desperate sex, and toxic relationships.

Inspired by the fragmented, poetic prose of Yuknavitch's book, Stewart's film opts for a non-linear narration of the action, especially in the kaleidoscopic montage of images and sounds in the first minutes, halfway between the visual lyricism of Terrence Malick, the cinema of Stan Brakhage, and the early films of Josephine Decker. Without completely abandoning it, Stewart modulates this style as we delve into the story of Lidia, played, from adolescence to her late thirties, by Imogen Poots in a thrilling performance at this edition of the festival, which should serve to establish the American actress.

The source material was not easy: past traumas weigh heavily on Lidia's identity, and she finds no peace either in sporting triumphs as a swimmer or in understanding boyfriends, like the one played by Earl Cave, Nick Cave's son, whom she mistreats for his lack of aggression. Lidia's relationship with sex is complicated, to say the least, as she masturbates furiously thinking about the abuse she suffered and experiments with sadomasochism with a woman. dominatrix played by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon. The film embraces the pain and confusion of Yuknavitch's complex life, which ultimately finds salvation in literature. Stewart tells it all with narrative audacity and empathy for the characters, and the result is magnificent.

The same cannot be said for one of the most anticipated titles in the official competition, Die, my love, which also explores mental health issues, in this case through the descent into the pit of depression of an early mother devoured by the boredom of long days with nothing to do and sexual frustration. Director Lynne Ramsay's return to Cannes afterYou were never actually here. (2017) is ambitious but fails to fully exploit the power of its two leading stars, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. The story's harsh, strained tone and lack of narrative tension squander Lawrence's dedicated efforts to portray the female experience of alienation. The protagonists' antipathy and the lack of interest in the dreamscapes Ramsay hints at make it difficult for the viewer to connect with a story of heartbreak devoid of warmth or emotion.

Linklater pays homage to Godard and the Nouvelle Vague

Also in official competition, Richard Linklater has raised the bar with the magnificent New Wave, a luminous tribute to Jean-Luc Godard and the unrepeatable generation of Cahiers du Cinema that changed the history of cinema. The film recreates the filming ofAt the end of the getaway and achieves the small miracle of being reasonably rigorous in its reconstruction of the facts and at the same time mischievous and funny. In 1:37 format and in black and white, Linklater copies the forms but does not limit himself to making a pastiche, but also captures the spirit of the protagonists and the era, especially the arrogant genius of Godard, who is characterized with the insolence ofenfant terrible which is assumed but also a sharp sense of humor and camaraderie with colleagues Cahiers.

Unlike Michel Hazanavicius, who in Temper (2017) failed to portray Godard with humor without ridiculing him, Linklater finds the right balance of comedy and respect that the film needs through sparkling dialogue punctuated by Godard's trademark aphorisms and the many absurd situations caused by his methods and disruptive attitude. Moreover, without ever losing his playful spirit, New Wave offers a master class on that cinematic revolution. New Wave It is the second great film signed this 2025 by Richard Linklater, who already amazed the Berlinale with Blue Moon, something that, for the moment, marks him as the most in-form director of the year.