Kristen's interview with Trois Couleurs France for 'The Chronology of Water'

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What was the first image that came to you while preparing  The Chronology of Water  ?

A blood clot, coagulated blood, impossible to mistake for anything else. This blood doesn't come from a wound. It comes from an orifice, an orifice that we're constantly made to feel shouldn't exist or that we can't look at it, talk about it, hear about it, get anything from it that isn't stolen. I had written down a lot of ideas, jotted down lines and lines, not all of which necessarily make it into the film. The images sort of took over the writing. But the first thing I wrote on a piece of paper was: "I have become water." And also: "Can we hold life and death in the same sentence?"

Your film talks about trauma that doesn't go away, but also about how we can convert it into art, into writing. What interests you about this subject?

There are secrets we keep that destroy us. When I say "we," I mean women, who hoard, constantly deny themselves, and tell themselves to keep quiet. Certain texts, certain encounters, certain works help us find our voice and encourage us to finally listen to ourselves. This is precisely what  Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water does  , in a radical, compelling way. This book is very popular; it has a veritable cult following. It is adored because people perceive it as a help. It is a lifeboat.

Your character, loosely based on Lidia's autobiographical text  [published in 2014 in France under the title La Mécanique des fluides]  is a complex novelist, driven by a desire for life but also for death. What do you understand about her?

She's a voracious character. I see her as a bottomless pit, full of many things. She has developed a desire for violence that doesn't entirely belong to her. Our desires aren't always developed by us alone, you know... They're imposed on us by external hazards, which we can't control. Having a woman's body in our world, being subjected to the representations of our own body, being subjected to the conversations that take place without us, and about us, leads us to integrate violence, even when we don't identify with it. I feel like I'm writing you a poem  [laughs.]  We have to engage with these issues, and that's what Lidia does. Her early  short stories [ Caverns  in 1990 and  Her Other Mouths  in 1997, editor's note]  are so violent, so striking, so beautifully porous… They suck you in and allow you to project yourself into every crevice, every unspeakable experience, even if you can't identify with every detail. I felt like this woman was screaming something I had internalized for a long time. I wanted to join in this kind of rebellious scream… And I'm certainly not alone in this. I'm convinced that if I feel this way, it's because many other people do.

We get the feeling that you wanted to destroy the usual codes of the biopic, by imposing a collage of images that sometimes border on the experimental and abstract. Why?

Yes, the film isn't so much about Lidia's life. It's about us, collectively. I didn't want a plot, but rather a mix of experiences gathered by someone trying to reclaim an identity and their body. The only way to honor the book was to allow the film to have a life of its own. The film is made of stitched, ephemeral memories. It feels like a dream I don't completely control. I didn't try to be faithful to the book, but even so, I think it's a faithful adaptation. The form had to be as revolutionary as the book. And mind you, I'm not calling the film "revolutionary"... I'm not self-proclaiming. I wanted everyone to be able to invest themselves, to project themselves, because that's the only reason we watch films: to feel experiences that are foreign to us, that are beyond us.

You use a lot of images of sewing, scarification, scars.

My character gets injured because she wants to imprint her pain on the outside. Like Lidia, the film had to have scars, which can be read like body Braille. And the reading can be different for everyone. I don't want to impose the story at all. I just want people to feel it, to feel encouraged to listen to themselves, to look at themselves, and to bleed in public.

It took you years to write and then produce this film. Why do you think that is?

Because no one wants to listen to women, to their stories. It doesn't sell. Because it's a "difficult subject." But if I never gave up on this project, it's because I wanted to show people that it can be liberating, even funny, to talk about these painful subjects. It's fun, to reveal secrets. It's funny, I wonder if I should say that about the film, but yes, the film is also about how funny it is, isn't it, to celebrate yourself, to watch yourself come? It's enjoyable to watch fluids gushing out, without being embarrassed, and to feel that the reappropriation of this shame can be transformed into an astonishing, noisy song that we can sing together. And that's a film.

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