Knife in the Water

Knife in the Water (aka Nóż w wodzie) (Roman Polanski, 1962) It all starts out as an idyllic getaway, built on brio and deceit. Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka) are driving—she's driving, he's watching her driving—until, finally, he takes the wheel because he doesn't like the way she negotiated an obstruction. Grumbling, he gets behind the wheel and almost runs down a hitch-hiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz), who's standing in the middle of the road, trying to get a ride one way or another. Andrzej berates the kid for being an idiot, but the kid is blasé about it and so non-confrontational, Andrzej gives him a ride...at least to where they're going—a marina where they have a sloop they're going to take out for an overnight sail, just the two of them. But, in the unpacking of the car and the preparation, the kid is just kind of hanging around with vague plans to camp out in the woods, and helps when he's asked. So, Andrzej invites him aboard.

 

The sailing's going to be rockier than expected.

Andrzej makes it clear that the kid is not getting a free ride. He's going to have to work. He's going to have to help and that "two men on board, only one can be the skipper." Sounds reasonable enough. The kid doesn't know to sail and doesn't know how to swim and has about the same amount of use on the boat as ballast. So, he gets to swab the deck and be mocked by Andrzei when he doesn't take to it immediately. Krystyna has no such ego involved, and is more like the kid in terms of any power struggle on the boat—she cooks the meals, she does the clean-up. Andrzej, well, he's the captain. He steers...everything.

But, even Andrzej isn't totally in control of the boat: sometimes the wind dies and they're stuck in place; they run aground and have to tow the boat by rope out of the shallows; a squall will force them into the cramped interior.

And there's another element in the power dynamic: the boy has a knife. It creates a fascination for Andrzej, watching the boy idle his time stabbing at the boat between his fingers in an ever quicker and more dangerous rhythm. Andrzej can't help himself but try at the little trick. But, the boy is very attached to the knife; on the road it is an essential tool for building shelter. It's a tool. Not a toy. But, It's one more element of a power struggle between three people, all with their strengths and weaknesses and all in uncharted territory despite being in familiar surroundings.

This is Polanski's first film, and his dynamics of power, which inform his films again and again, are present from the first. There is nowhere to hide on a boat and so lines must be drawn and advantages used. And when disaster strikes, suddenly the dynamics change and the group splinters in interesting ways that leave everyone changed and more than a little adrift.

It's a fairly simple film, but Polanski manages to maximize what he's able to do with it, despite and—one has to acknowledge—because of the claustrophobic nature of the setting. One only has to look at Philip Noyce's Dead Calm—despite taking place on a much bigger boat—to see the influence it has on that film, and no one can do a film about close quarters, whether on a boat or not, without taking some notes from his work here.

Knife in the Water was a game-changer, not only for its director (who completely dubbed the dialogue of the hitchhiker), but also for the Polish film industry—which, under a communist rule had exerted some influence over the film's story. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and was quite successful in the West—even garnering a cover on Time Magazine—and easing the restrictions on subject matter in Polish films, which, by and large, had mostly focused on war themes.

 

And it demonstrates Polanski's fascination with the simultaneous occurrences of the polarities of existence, of "the best of times, the worst of times" and how even the idyllic can become the stuff of nightmares.