Main Cast: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz
Release Year: 1962
Country: PL
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
Noz w Wodzie was not only Polanski's first feature-length film, but it also marked the first screen appearance of Polish actor Zygmunt Malanowicz who played a young student. In fact, the only experienced thespian in the featured trio is Leon Niemczyk as Andrzej, the self-important, somewhat arrogant husband of Kataryna. Andrzej and Kataryna pick up the student as he is hitchhiking and invite him to join them on their boat for an outing. As the threesome head out to open water, the husband and the student start a kind of jealous interaction that keeps Kataryna mildly amused. What began as a macho sparring ends up in a fight that has the student falling overboard and the husband swimming to shore for help. But appearances are deceiving, as the husband will soon discover. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Review
After directing a string of acclaimed shorts, the young Roman Polanski assembled a small crew and mostly unprofessional cast in his native Poland to shoot this full-length thriller. The spare, tense film remains one of Polanski's most striking efforts, a cool, detached character study with stark, high-contrast black-and-white visuals to match. Polanski may have seen himself in the character of the cunning, disaffected drifter, a possibility bolstered by the fact that he dubbed his own voice over Zygmunt Malanowicz's for the film's final cut. Though Polanski was obviously taking cues from the late 1950s/early 1960s work of Michelangelo Antonioni and even Ingmar Bergman, the movie retains a hip, modern feel all its own; throughout his career, Polanski would revisit the concept of the disaffected anti-hero and his tortured relations with women. Knife in the Water brought Polanski to the attention of the European film community, as well as the American Motion Picture Academy, who nominated the film against Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 for Best Foreign Language Film in 1964. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Knife in the Water (Polish: Nóż w wodzie) is a 1962 film directed by Roman Polański. It features only three characters and deals with rivalry and sexual tension.
Andrzej (Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Umecka) are driving to a lake to go sailing when they come upon a young man (Malanowicz) hitchhiking in the middle of the road. After nearly hitting him, Andrzej invites the young man to pick his seat and to take a nap while they continue driving. When they arrive at the docks, instead of leaving the young man behind, Andrzej invites him to sail with them for the day. The young man accepts the offer, and, not knowing much about sailing, is forced to learn many hard lessons from Andrzej.
Meanwhile, tension gradually builds between Andrzej and the unnamed hitchhiker as they vie for the attentions of the young wife. 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 in the water. A fight ensues between Andrzej and the hitchhiker and the latter falls into the water. The husband and wife search for him, but cannot find him and assume that he has drowned, since earlier he had claimed that he could not swim. Wife and husband quarrel about what to do next about the situation, resulting in the husband's flee to escape his problem, by jumping off the yacht and swimming to shore. Afterwards, once the young man realizes that the husband has jumped the yacht, he comes out from hiding behind a buoy on the lake, and returns to the yacht where Krystyna is drying off and presumably wondering what action to take next. Before the young man goes on his way they become passionate towards each other. When Krystyna sails into the dock, Andrzej is waiting for her. He wants to go the police to report the young man as missing, but Krystyna tells him that the young man returned, and is not even convinced when Krystyna confesses to having been unfaithful with the young man. Andrzej appears confused and the car does not move.
Production
Knife in the Water was shot by Polanski in 1962 with three actors. It was Polanski's first feature film and two of the actors (Jolanta Umecka, who plays Krystyna and Zygmunt Malanowicz, who plays the young man) had virtually no previous professional experience. Krzysztof Komeda composed the film's music and the featured saxophonist was the Swede Bernt Rosengren.
