''Knife in the Water'' ( pl, Nóż w wodzie) is a 1962 Polish
psychological thriller film co-written and directed by
Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...
in his feature debut, and starring
Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, and
Zygmunt Malanowicz. Its plot follows a husband and wife who are accompanied on a boating trip with a young male hitchhiker, who spurs a number of escalating confrontations between the couple.
The film was nominated for
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is Polanski's only Polish-language feature to date. ''Knife in the Water'' has garnered acclaim from film critics since its release, and is one of Polanski's best-reviewed works.
Plot
Andrzej (
Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka) are driving to a lake to go sailing when they come upon a young man (
Zygmunt Malanowicz) hitchhiking in the middle of the road. After nearly hitting him, Andrzej invites the young man along. When they arrive at the lake, instead of leaving the young man behind, Andrzej invites him to go sailing with them. The young man accepts the offer, and, not knowing much about sailing, must learn many hard lessons from Andrzej.
Meanwhile, tension gradually builds between Andrzej and the hitchhiker as they vie for the attentions of Krystyna. The title refers to the major turning point in the film when Andrzej taunts the young man with the latter's treasured pocket knife, which is accidentally lost overboard. A fight ensues between Andrzej and the hitchhiker and the latter falls into the water. Andrzej and his wife search for him, but cannot find him and assume that he has drowned, since earlier he said that he could not swim. Andrzej and his wife quarrel about what to do, and Andrzej swims to shore to fetch the police. When the young man realizes that Andrzej has gone he comes out from hiding behind a buoy on the lake and swims to the yacht. There he sees Krystyna naked drying off. He boards the yacht and Krystyna tells him he is as bad as Andrzej but sexual attraction wins out and they have sex, off screen.
Krystyna sails back to the dock, the man jumps off and goes on his way before Andrzej appears and takes charge again. He wants to go to the police to report the young man missing. Krystyna tells him that the young man returned and she was unfaithful. Andrzej does not know what to believe and at the road junction, where they would turn one way to return home and another to go to the police station, the car does not move.
Cast
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Leon Niemczyk as Andrzej
* Jolanta Umecka as Krystyna
*
Zygmunt Malanowicz as Young Man
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
*
Anna Ciepielewska as Krystyna (voice)
*
Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...
as Young Man (voice)
Analysis
Film professor Charles Derry notes that ''Knife in the Water'' is atypical from other thrillers due to the fact that it "represses the usual violence promised by the thriller,
ndit ends its narrative with violence's opposite: a scene of total stasis, in which no action is perfectly acceptable to the husband protagonist."
Production
Development
The screenplay for the film, written by Polanski,
Jakub Goldberg, and
Jerzy Skolimowski, was initially rejected by the
Polish Ministry of Culture due to its "lack of social commitment." Unable to obtain funding in his native Poland, Polanski reworked the screenplay to be set in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
, though the production was ultimately unable to receive funding there as well. After making a number of minor edits to the screenplay—mainly snippets of dialogue demonstrating "social commitment" to "appease the Ministry
f Culture—Polanski again pitched the project to the national film board, who approved it for production.
Filming
''Knife in the Water'' was shot by Polanski in 1961 using only three actors. It marked Polanski's debut as a feature-length director. Two of the actors (Jolanta Umecka, who plays Krystyna and Zygmunt Malanowicz, who plays the young man) had virtually no previous professional acting experience.
Krzysztof Komeda
Krzysztof Trzciński (27 April 1931 – 23 April 1969), known professionally as Krzysztof Komeda, was a Polish film music composer and jazz pianist. Perhaps best known for his work in film scores, Komeda wrote the scores for Roman Polanski’s f ...
composed the film's music and the featured saxophonist was
Bernt Rosengren.
Being filmed on the water (in the Polish
Masurian Lake District
The Masurian Lake District or Masurian Lakeland ( pl, Pojezierze Mazurskie; german: Masurische Seenplatte) is a lake district in northeastern Poland within the geographical region of Masuria, in the past inhabited by Masurians who spoke the Masu ...
), and largely within the confines of a sailboat and life raft, the film was technically difficult. While the sailboat was large enough for the three actors, it was quite cramped for the film crew, who often had to hang over the side of the boat with safety harnesses in order to shoot.
Release
''Knife in the Water'' was released theatrically in Poland on 9 March 1962. It premiered in the United States the following year, on 28 October 1963.
Critical reception
''Knife in the Water'' was nominated for
Best Foreign Language Film at the
1963 Academy Awards,
the first Polish motion picture to receive this kind of recognition. ''Time'' used a still from the film, with Umecka and Malanowicz on the verge of a kiss, as the cover of an issue featuring international cinema. It won the
FIPRESCI Prize
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
in
1962 Venice Film Festival. The film has been included in lists of the best debut feature films and was ranked number 61 in ''Empire'' magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 97% approval rating based on 35 reviews, with an
average score of 8.3/10.
In 2014,
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...
selected ''Knife in the Water'' to be screened as part of the festival of Polish films in the United States and Canada entitled "Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema".
In the 2015 poll conducted by Polish Museum of Cinematography in
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...
, ''Knife in the Water'' was ranked as the fourth greatest Polish film of all time.
Home media
''Knife in the Water'' was released on VHS in 1996, and on DVD in 2003 by
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...
.
Related works
''Knife in the Water'' was the basis for a low budget 2001 American film ''
Kaaterskill Falls
Kaaterskill Falls is a two-stage waterfall on Spruce Creek in the eastern Catskill Mountains of New York, between the hamlets of Haines Falls and Palenville in Greene County. The two cascades total 260 feet (79 m) in height, making Kaaterskil ...
'', set in the
Catskill Mountains.
Polański himself had an offer to make an English-language, colour remake, with a Hollywood cast (including
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American actor. He had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. He cultivated an everyman screen image in several films considered to be classics.
Born and ra ...
), but he refused, saying he did not want to do a remake of a movie that was already good.
See also
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Notes
References
Sources
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External links
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''Knife in the Water''at culture.pl
''Knife in the Water''an essay by
Peter Cowie
Peter Cowie (born 24 December 1939) is a film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. In 1963 he was the founder/publisher and general editor of the annual ''International Film Guide'', a survey of worldwide film production, whi ...
at the
Criterion Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knife In The Water
1962 films
1962 directorial debut films
1962 drama films
1960s psychological thriller films
Polish drama films
Polish black-and-white films
1960s Polish-language films
Films directed by Roman Polanski
Sailing films
Films scored by Krzysztof Komeda
Films with screenplays by Jerzy Skolimowski
Films with screenplays by Roman Polanski