Bold, sexual, and raw: Kristen Stewart's directorial debut, the big surprise at Cannes.

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 her, Stewart modulates this style as we immerse ourselves in the story of Lidia, played, from adolescence to her late thirties, by the extraordinary Imogen Poots. The raw, visceral expressiveness of her face is one of the most thrilling spectacles of 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 embodied 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.