Knife in the Water: Essential Art House
by Roman Polanski
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DVD details
Actor: Jolanta Umecka, Leon Niemcyzk, Zygmunt MalanowiczDirector: Roman Polanski
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Polish (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Black & White, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-09
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection
DVD Reviews of Knife in the Water: Essential Art House
DVD Review: The anti-thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
If this hadn't been a Criterion disk, I would have thought at first that it was a panned-and-scanned copy of a widescreen film, the use of off-screen space is so profound. And it feels, at first, like it should be widescreen -- the empty landscape, long straight road, the couple sitting far apart in the front seat of their car -- it must have been a shock to a lot of cinemagoers 45 years ago. THIS is Polish cinema? This looks like French or Italian cinema -- Antonioni, or Godard, or Truffaut perhaps. And though there are some superficial resemblances, finally, it's something quite different.
Our couple - middle-aged Adrezej and his much younger wife Krystyna - pick up a young hitchhiker (never named) and the older man invites him - or perhaps coerces him - along for a ride on their sailboat. All the elements are in place for a thriller, a murder perhaps or a sexual game play; the older man, cynical and intellectual and clearly hiding much of himself; the younger and quite attractive wife who seems quite bored - though of him, of the sailing, or of life itself we cannot tell - she is a cypher through much of the film; the young man whose purposes and desires are never clear, probably even to himself.
Tension, tension, tension -- yet little happens. And when it does, do we really care? Should we? We're concerned I suppose to see whether the status quo is broken, to see if the wife and husband come to verbal blows, or the young man and the increasingly sadistic husband enter a physical altercation. When finally there is an "event" that seems to forbode a major change, even a catastrophe in the situation, we wonder if it will even matter....
I loved the photography, the beautiful tight, cramped and yet desolate compositions of boat, a human or three, and water and sky; the jazzy score by Krzysztof Komeda; the acting, even of the much-maligned Jolanta Umecka as Krystyna, who seemed to me to have the perfect blankness for such a role (she could have been wonderful for Antonioni); but I was unmoved while watching, at first, and even at the end rather unsure. It really wasn't until a day later, thinking it over, that I grasped the greatness of it all, the showing of an event of profound internal significance -- possibly to all 3 characters -- but of no practical importance whatsoever. Even if it is a life-changing experience, how can it be explained? Everything is internalized, and visualized only on the faces. Is this the first "thriller where nothing happens"? I don't know, but it is certainly one of the more successful examples.
The Criterion disc looks and sounds excellent; you don't get all the extras on this Essential Arthouse edition, which I think in this case are probably worth it - but if you just want the film, here it is as fresh as it was 50 years ago.
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