ruby765 This is my first time to watch a Polish film. I remember the background music of vintage jazz in it is comfortable, especially the sound of saxophone is nice. This story seems a relaxed sailing trip of a middle-aged couple and a young man at first glance, but we can enjoy each relationship. It's sometimes peace, and sometimes like comedy. I couldn't stop laughing for a while because the funny scene appears so unexpected. After watching it, we can find the good points of a sailing trip, and we'll imagine Poland as such a nice place. It's very hard to understand what's going on because of turn of events at the end of the story, but it's wonderful.

Steve Pulaski Often eclipsing Roman Polanski's early and remarkable films are his contemporary allegations, which we've all read about time and time again thanks to endless tabloid cycles that circumvent and reveal nothing new (same goes for Woody Allen), and circumstances as a young child, who saw his mother killed in Auschwitz and himself subsequently enduring many life-or-death situations in order to escape Nazi Germany. When Polanski left Germany in the early 1960's, he was a poor drifter with few belongings and fewer ideas about what he could do to maintain and forge a solid living. His angst and doubt - in addition to ideas of sexual tension and a bitter generational divide - are encapsulated in his debut film, Knife in the Water, a film with only three actors, no extras, an isolated setting, and a script bent on conversation with a venomous bite.The story begins with Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka), an older couple who are driving to a lake to spend time together on their yacht in Poland's Mansurian Lake District. On the way, Andrzej nearly hits a young drifter (Zygmunt Malanowicz) as he wanders onto the road, but makes it up for it by offering the young boy a ride. When the three eventually arrive at the lake, Andrzej, who has taken a liking to the boy's ideas and maturity, offers him to tag along on their yacht. The boy learns a variety of tips about survival and boating from Andrzej, as gestures slowly shift from kindness to hard lessons and two men vying for the attention of Krystyna.After brief sequences on land, Knife in the Water takes place entirely on water, simultaneously freeing its three subjects and confining them to the only kind of stability they know on rough currents - a boat where they cannot escape anyone else on board from a distance. During this time, no other boat or yacht is seen cruising along the water, nor are any extraneous parties referred to or scene throughout the course of this entire film. It's as if this film takes place entirely in a world only inhabited by three people, and the fact that Polanski tackles this kind of ambition through ways of small-scale filmmaking in terms of setting and characters is astonishingly bold for a debut.Knife in the Water is a film of dualities that occasionally conflict but otherwise function germane to one another. As stated, the environment these characters are in is simultaneously restrictive and mentally freeing, despite their choice to use it as a space that closes in on them ever-so slowly with their pervasive bickering. In addition, there's a delightful meshing of older, worn sentiments from a middle-aged man and a young opportunist who possesses drive but lacks willpower and experience to better himself. Finally, there's the titular object of the film, which is lost in the vast sea early on in the film. The phallic representation of the knife could mean many things, but it's ultimately a defining force in the constant battle for Krystyna in which both men engage. The simple is also justifiably representing the discernible sharp edge the three characters bear in their personalities throughout the whole thing, but how minimized and ineffective their stab is once placed in a greater setting (an enormous body of water, with the only other force to work alongside it being the open sky).Knife in the Water is as murky and questionable in its themes and ideas as a filthy body of water, but perhaps such is expected when you bring three troubled characters out on the pure waters of Poland. Polanski shows off a wonderful skill for making the large environment of the endless body of water slowly close in on its subjects as more particular, bitter words are exchanged and a wave of inferiority and inadequacy washes over the characters like a dip in less-than-clean-waters. This is a seriously commendable film in size and scope and an even more fascinating work as an examination of the many dualities and opposing forces, both physical and metaphorical, we see operate on a daily basis.Starring: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, and Zygmunt Malanowicz. Directed by: Roman Polanski.

LeonLouisRicci Debut for Director Roman Polanski is an Amateur Film made by a Professional. It is a Sometimes Remarkable and Precision Picture from a Perfectionist. Visually it is more Impressive than the Thinnest of Psychological Gamesmanship. It has one Note, the Male Competition among Males to Impress each other. Forget the Female.In this one She is really nothing more than Background or Eye Candy, but and Intelligent Sweetness it is. She doesn't say much but when She does it Cuts Like a Knife and then Retreats to Watch the Game at Hand.The Film Succeeds in Creating an Outdoor Claustrophobia. Polanski hardly uses any Wide Shots that include the Landscape. it is there as Background but is not a Player. That is left for the Boat and the Trio on Board. The Tension Builds and Builds, but is only Released in Trickles, and even the Ending is a bit of a Let Down. Especially after Returning to Land, the Wrap-Up is rather Vague and not very Satisfying.Recommended for Film-Historians and Cinema Lovers, but Casual Viewers may be Disappointed. It is Immensely Introspective and Sure of Hand, and was Compelling Enough for Polanski to be Recognized, Riding the New Wave.

Pierre Radulescu I firstly saw Nóz w Wodzie sometime in the sixties. Throughout the years I forgot some details of the plot, while I kept the essential. I remained with the impression of one of the greatest movies ever. I watched many other of Polanski's works, none of them has succeeded to replace this one in my soul. Many of his movies are great, this one is unique. By the purity of his minimalism? Maybe. You see, his other works started from very generous stories, offering full potential to create great movies. This one has practically no story. A couple is driving their car toward a lake for two days of sailing, a hitch-hiker appears as of nowhere, they invite him to join, their stay on the boat is tensioned by obscure conflicting impulses, a fight takes place, the unknown guy leaves toward nowhere. Drowned (as the male believes)? Alive (as the female knows)? Or is it just the woman imagination? After many years I encountered the movies of Kim Ki-Duk. 3-Iron made Nóz w Wodzie come to my mind. It seemed to me that both movies were sailing on the same waters. I related 3-Iron to Nóz w Wodzie, and then I related all Kim Ki-Duk films to 3-Iron. They are exploring two universes: ours, where what matters is a good job, a good car, a good house, a good marriage (to be read a spectacular wife), and the other universe, where everything is just absurd (by our standards). The hitch-hiker in the movie of Polanski, the drifter in the movie of Kim Ki-Duk, are just visitors: our reaction is of open hostility (if we are the subjects in our world), sometimes of obscure attraction (if we are rather the objects, dreaming escapes). Hostile or attracted to them, it happens the same: they remain just visitors, we'll never know anything about them.