Knife in the Water (The Criterion Collection)
by Roman Polanski
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Actor: Henryk Kluba, Jakub Goldberg, Jolanta Umecka, Leon Niemczyk, Zygmunt MalanowiczDirector: Roman Polanski
Brand: Image Entertainment
Writer: Jakub Goldberg
Writer: Andrzej Kondratiuk
Producer: Roman Polanski
Writer: Roman Polanski
Producer: Jean-Pierre Rousseau
Producer: Karen Stetler
Writer: Jerzy Skolimowski
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Polish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 94 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
DVD Reviews of Knife in the Water (The Criterion Collection)
DVD Review: Great debut
Summary: 4 Stars
Roman Polanski is at his best as a filmmaker when he focuses on the realist and small moments of horror in a human life. When he goes a bit overboard, and into the grotesque or surreal, such as in The Fearless Vampire Killers, or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck, Rosemary's Baby, or Chinatown, his films tend to lose their way, even if still good. When his focus remains tightly on the real, such as in Repulsion or The Pianist, his films are amongst the best on screen. His very first feature film, 1962's Knife In The Water (Nóz W Wodzie), is more in line with the latter films, and as such, is one of the best debut films in cinema history, and was even a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1963 Academy Awards, where it lost to Federico Fellini's 8½.
Filmed in black and white, not long after Polanski finished film school, the 94 minute film features only three characters- not a single other actor, not even an extra, and is a taut psychological exploration of masculinity and testosterone. Yet, despite that, it's a stretch to term the film a `thriller,' as many critics have. There is very little action in the film, at least in a material sense. The real crux of the film revolves about the mental games that the two male characters play with each other, to impress the lone female in their group. In a sense, the film has much in common with many of the American television dramas of the 1950s, even though it was filmed on a real lake.
The film opens with a married couple driving in the countryside, early one Sunday morning. They are headed to their boat on the lake. He is a fortysomething, dark-haired sportswriter and avid sailor, named Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk), while his brunet wife, Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka), is a bit younger, nearing thirty, and at first seems a bit chunky and nebbishy, as she wears cat-like granny glasses. As the film progresses, she will appear more and more svelte and sexy, and it is this subtle evolution which seems to kick the two males into overdrive. The third character is a blond hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz), in his early twenties, whose name is never revealed throughout the film. Andrzej nearly runs him down on the road, then offers him a ride, seemingly to show off his prowess in front of his wife. He rides with them to the deserted marina, and is about to take off, when Andrzej offers to let him come on the trip on their sailboat, the Christine. After first declining, the young man accepts, stating he knew Andrzej would ask. This is his first upping of the ante, as he lets it be known that he is no naïf. Krystyna merely watches the two men tangle, early on.... Another thing that sets the film apart from lesser works is that it was very cogent in its critiques of Soviet dominated Poland, yet it still works today at a more personal level. As example, in its day, there was a direct stab at the supposed classlessness of a Communist society, for the married couple are obviously well off Party apparatchiks- replete with a fancy car, yacht and apartment, who worry if their windshield wipers will be stolen, if they leave their car for a day. They are stolen, at film's end, but even such a worry says much for the dire state of things in the Soviet bloc. The young hitchhiker is the common man, the young idealistic sort that totalitarian states despise, and a good deal of the tension between the men has to do not only with testosterone, but with class differences. But, it is the testosteronic tension that still resonates and carries the film today. Also, there is a Twilight Zone-like otherworldliness to this film that also resonates. After all, it's a Sunday morning, there are many other boats docked in the marina, but only the three characters in the film are boating, as if they are occupying some usually unseen portion of an Apocalyptic film's world.
Knife In The Water is a quiet film, unlike showier Hollywood knockoffs, thus why it still works, and has not dated. It could be set in any part of the world over the last hundred or so years, for the setup is timeless, even if Polanski's denouement is unique. If Andrzej wins, and the youth is really dead, there is the classic might makes right motif. If the youth dispatches Andrzej, then there is the classic father/son conflict, but if the film ends with all three surviving, and with the woman holding the upper hand in a conflicted state between the three, then the narrative has taken a turn toward realism and depth with strong claims to being great art. Polanski makes all the right choices in this film. That all the `action' takes place in about a twenty-four hour period only heightens the intensity of the subtle gamesmanship on all three parties' parts, and allows the narrative to be both naturalistic, yet also classically dramatic. When one can get `the best of both worlds,' to such a degree, one is accomplishing alot, and Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water does that and much more. Would more art supply the `much more' it often promises, works like this film would not surprise and delight the viewer to such a satisfying degree.
Description of Knife in the Water (The Criterion Collection)
KNIFE IN THE WATER - DVD MovieThis simple but taut psychological thriller was the first full-length film from the great director Roman Polanski. A bickering couple pick up a hitchhiker, a good-looking young man whom they invite to go for a sail. But on the water the two men, separated by age, class, and experience, subtly and not-so-subtly jockey for status and fight for the attentions of the woman--a struggle that threatens to turn fatal. In Polanski's hands, this lean, spare movie, without any special effects or spectacular scenery, manages to lay bare the driving forces of machismo, envy, and marital spite. It's the beginning of a truly remarkable career that's ranged from the heights of Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown to the more dubious realms of Bitter Moon and The Ninth Gate. Knife in the Water is particularly significant to Polanski fans, but also a striking movie in its own right. --Bret Fetzer
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