Knife in the Water

Polanski's first feature. Hmmmmm..... This film is a study of macho rivalry, sexual tension and establishing who is the alpha male. I felt strangely unfulfilled after the film, I guess I was expecting something darker or more serious to happen, but it never did.

Don't get me wrong there is some excellent acting by the Polish cast as well as some innovative camera work. The tension between the rich, older Andrzej and the exuberant, free spirited young man (you aren't told his name) is evident from the first time they meet. This carries over on to the boat where Andrzej takes every opportunity to play captain, ordering the young man around in an attempt to demean and humiliate him. Eventually things turn to hostility with the young attractive wife trying to placate the two.

Not bad for a first feature, a good springboard for Polanski as we all know he went on to better things from here.

This film is a masterpiece for a movie fan that understands sharp dialog and is interested in so called "mind" suspense. Characters in the movie are psychologically fully developed and the direction is superb; if you include Komeda's nervous jazz elements, the result is Perfection with big P. Polanski knows exactly what perfectionism is about - the devil is in the details, and the devil has no place in this great little classic. I recommend this movie to everyone that wants to get involved in film industry. Let it be the reminder why movies exist in the first place. It's the story that matters and it's the impact that dialog provides; if scenes or words stay with you long after you've seen the movie, you know that something BIG has hit you. You know that you actually start THINKING about yourself...

I liked this film more than I thought I would. Perhaps this was because the last Polanski film I saw was REPULSION--a technically well-made but repulsive film (that few average people would ever want to see). It is a very simple story with only three characters but manages, somehow, not to bore the viewer or give in to what is expected. For example, when the couple met the hitchhiker, I expected the old cliché of the "psychotic drifter" who would ultimately terrorize and/or kill them. But, as the film unfolded, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting and he never dismembered or terrorized them at all. In fact, one of the OTHER main characters turned out to be the jerk! Now that's interesting.

Why not an even higher score? Well, the ending of the movie just didn't make sense. The nasty husband jumped overboard to try and rescue the drifter but the husband appears to have drowned. BUT, when the wife and drifter take the sailboat back to shore, the nasty husband meets the boat!!! How could this have happened unless maybe there was a submarine in the lake that rescued him?! My daughter thinks maybe he could walk on water, but that's a pretty rare occurrence. This is a pretty big mistake, now that I think about it--and it's a shame since the rest of the movie is so good.

ADDENDUM--I received a message on IMDb from Chris-Krzysztof indicating that this was NOT the way the film ended. His post is given below:

"I guess you missed something in the subtitles or there was something "lost in translation". After having searched the boy for some time the couple thinks he had drowned, they have a fight and when the husband disappears, he's not searching the boy anymore, but he's swimming to the shore to a police station to confess what happened (mostly to prove his wife he's not a coward). In the morning, they meet at the shore (the husband of course didn't have enough courage to go the police, he's making excuses that it was in the night, he was almost naked, couldn't get into the car - the keys were on the yacht). When they leave the marina, he stops the car at the crossroads, where we can see a sign (not sure if it was translated) "Do posterunku MILICJI obywatelskiej, 10 km" (To the POLICE station, 10 km). And the car remains there, so we don't know which way he chooses ... "

As I responded to him, in the version I saw, this is not how the ending was translated. Considering I think Chris speaks Polish, I am sure he is right. However, many older films exist in multiple versions and translations and I think the version I saw was mistranslated. As a result, I am adding this addendum to clarify things.

Devastating and beautiful early film from talented director Roman Polanski...but 'beautiful' in a sad, melancholy sense. Rarely have I seen a picture which so vividly captures the wonder of weather (gray and drizzly skies and choppy sea water, illuminated suddenly by a burst of sun rays). Sure, the film is in black-and-white, however that foreboding sky actually becomes a character in the plot involving a couple out for a boating weekend who pick up a hitchhiker and invite him along on their trip. Not a whole lot of story (in the conventional sense), though both Jerzy Lipman's amazing cinematography and Krzysztof Komeda's jazzy score make the journey a worthy ride which builds in suspense and a creepy, muted kind of ambiance. Polanski's eye is unerring, but don't expect him to give into a big pay-off. The narrative is pretty much based in reality--it's grounded--and is without major outbursts, violence or melodrama. *** from ****

In Polanski's feature debut, "Knife in the Water," strange power games were again to the fore, with ridiculous macho rivalries arising when a young looking man hitches a lift with a sportswriter and his attractive wife… Though the plot itself is slim, the film is distinguished by Polanski's precise visuals, which point the shifts in allegiance between the three characters through subtle groupings; impressively, although almost the whole film is situated on a small yacht, the effect is always cinematic rather than theatrical…

Polanski's film is implicit, ingenious, mesmerizing, and has artistic integrity… It is filled with a very different sort of suspense… There is no violence… The suspense is hinted at, suggested, refined tautly, glimpsed, did-he-mean-what-I-think-he-meant?

The rich man's confidence was in his possessions, among which was numbered his attractive wife, lying in bikini, teasing by arousing expectations between them on the deck… The student's confidence, casual, almost unaware, was in his very being... The husband resented the youth, the strength, the "cool," the easy virility of the student and worked out a compulsion to keep challenging them, to try to show his superiority…

Polanski was fair – each had his own strengths and skills; but the one obsessively resented the others