Nóz w wodzie

Plot synopsis:
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 the car does not move.

Tags: boring, cruelty, murder, atmospheric, claustrophobic, suspenseful

Review:
Polanski's first feature, on paper, sounds like nothing more than a run-of-the-mill claustrophobic thriller set on a boat - a couple takes a loner on board, you figure out the rest.
'Dead Calm', 'The Deep', etc etc etc.Instead, 'Knife In The Water' is an agonisingly tense look at male posturing & ego, the husband & hitch-hiker constantly challenging each other in every possible way - sailing prowess, games of fiddlesticks, knife throwing & just generally strutting about.
Polanski doesn't let us off the hook that easily - things get rough, but the games continue, right until the very end of the film.Shot in black & white, with a cast of three, & virtually one small location, 'Knife In The Water' puts bigger films to shame.
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 first Polish film to be nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar, Roman Polanski's "Knife in the Water" is one of the most impressive director's debuts I've seen.The story is simple.
His young and sexy wife does not say much but as the yacht moves along and tension between two men rises, she seems to enjoy the presence of a passenger and the obvious competition between them for her attention.Made of the very simple material, the film is a brilliant psychological thriller that shows the young writer-director's extraordinary ability to create menace on the screen throughout the profound study of the characters' deep hidden emotions.
Roman Polanski, who co-wrote and directed the film (as well giving an entire voice-over to the hitch-hiker), is careful in reeling in the emotions out of little dialog, and is also granted two tremendous assets aside from the actors: 1) Jerzy Lipman's crisp, free-flowing, and usually tight (to get the tenseness of the three characters) b/w photography draws one in by it's deep focus and sometimes documentary feel.
One thing that definitely shows the film breaking away from the attitudes of the 50's in the emphasis on the sexual tension, and the actors convey that very well when called upon - adding to this, Umecka is a total, natural knock-out, if not entirely in performance (though the quiet, inward quality is when she's at her best).
Knife in the Water (1962), Polanski's feature debut, made when he was twenty-nine, is a tense overnight sailing trip taken by a man with his pretty younger wife and a handsome young drifter they find hitchhiking on their drive to the boat.
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.
Well, this film may not appeal to the legions of folk who consider drivel like The Sixth Sense to be great drama/thriller material, but to those of us who adore movies and respect the great ones, this one is a gem.This great-granddad to later works like "Dead Calm" or even "The Talented Mr. Ripley" manages to deliver the goods on this wickedly smart little tale about a young middle class couple who pick up a hitchhiker who manages to turn their life around in the course of one day.
What sets this film apart from others is it's place in movie history and it's polished (no pun intended) directorial style.This early hit by future great director Roman Polanski manages to make you believe in these three people without questioning the typically silly things that people do in thrillers.
It is an original film through and through, and the young Polanski had already his artistic stamp ready to forge on his first work (Three men and a wardrobe was not directed by him, I don't think).
How can a woman whose "husband" is dangerously swimming ashore to summon help, can be so relaxed as to have sex with the young man when he is going to vanish from their lives within a few hours?Louis Malle famously said that he prefers the filmgoers to leave the cinema with lots of questions in their heads, rather than answers to all the questions in the film.
This is part of Polanski's art house beginnings, but many of its themes and much of its style would be carried through to his later, more accessible work.Like many a Polanski picture, Knife in the Water shows us men competing over a woman.
This kind of minimalism is a safe, simple way to make a straightforward, uncluttered story  a good strategy for an up and coming director  but it's a lot harder to make a really great picture out of such simple elements, and the young Polanski does fall somewhat short here.What Polanski does have is his natural talent and feel for cinematic form.
A particularly effective moment is the first shot of the boat drifting out across the lake with trees dotted in the background, which then cuts to a close-up of Krystyna, the wife, lying on her back filling the lower half of the frame, with the exact same background as the previous shot.Knife in the Water is a fairly good film with some good ideas.
WELL,you can defined this great film just by one particular scene: the old man is rich,have good social position and took the boy on board to play the role of his mentor.However the young man was dragging the beautiful knife,which was_as he claimed_ the most important thing in his life.The guy was always playing the knife between his fingers and the old man was jealous about that.So when the boy went inside the yacht leaving the knife,the old man took the knife and tried to do the same.Suddenly the young appear and saw this.The only way for the old man to get away with some honour was to allow the boy do the play:he played the knife between the old man's fingers,looking straight into his eyes.Well the lady at the same time was swimming using a funny rubber cocodrile.So, imagine this beautiful scene with the knife,all the tension and suddenly we hear the woman shouting:'Andrzej, Andrzej,the cocodrile is making the bubbles',huh,when I was in the cinema the whole audience burst laughting after hearing that!.
is the waving movement  of the yacht who creates the sensual scene!.Of course this  scene was part of the longer plot ,the critics described this `knife scene' as the most famous and symbolic scene in all of Polanski films..Zygmunt Malanowicz,the actor who played the part of the young man said that he practice a lotnfor those scenes,polanski was afraid if he was prcticing long enough,finally everything was Ok.As Leon Niemczyc,the actor who played the mature role said" Malanowicz only gave me sligh scars'.The idea of the film was the strange competition between this two men.the jury and the prize was the woman.Polanski said he needed a actress that looked plain and normal in ordinary dress but intriguing in bikini!.Polanski was not only interested in this kind of personages,he likes the relantionship between' the master and the servant' The domineering and the repressed ,as we can see in his short film' The Fat and the Lean' (1961, B&W, 15mins) or in features like Knife in the Water (1962); Cul-de-sac (1966);Dance of the Vampires(1967) etc..
When they reach the marina, Andrzej unexpectedly and without any reason invites the young man to sail with them, initiating a tense dispute of power with the youth, in a claustrophobic and erotic environment."Nóz w Wodzie" is a claustrophobic, tense and erotic little movie of the earlier career of Polanski.
Knife in the Water is the debut feature film from Polish director Roman Polanski.
If I had seen this in 1962 I probably wouldn't have thought much of Polanski, but of course I know how renowned he is in 2011, so Knife in the Water in no way hurts my opinion of the man's work..
It is a visual tone poem, in black and white, with subtitles.After a brief initial car trip setup scene where an attractive married couple pick up an attractive 19 year old male student hitchhiker, and then the husband invites him to spend the weekend sailing with them, the entire film is set on a pocket cruiser sized sailboat, perhaps 26 ft.
KNIFE IN THE WATER is an intelligent drama exclusively resolves around three people, Andrzej (Niemczyk), his wife Krystyna (Umecka) and an unnamed young man (Malanowicz) with minimal locations.Middle-aged Andrzej, driving with his much younger wife Krystyna on their way to a daily sailing, en route, Andrzej almost knocks off a reckless hitchhiker, outraged, he still agrees to take the stranger, and eventually invites him to join them together for the excursion, here, Polanski hints the motivation, since the young man claims he doesn't have the faintest about sailing and cannot swim at all, as a man twice of his age, Andrzej's intention to teach him some hard lessons and make himself look good (an ego boost is very much needed because things are not very smooth between him and Krystyna as well) is quite obvious.The journey starts in a predicted direction, Andrzej is the self-claimed captain, as if he were a seasoned seafarer, instructs the young man with basic nautical techniques, teases him for his clumsiness, and gets offended when his yarn turns out to be a bore to his guest.
the truth and admit he has been fooled by the young man, a superb ending with perfect ambiguity.KNIFE IN THE WATER is a bracingly competent debut, largely shuns the disadvantages (e.g. self- absorbed pretension or becoming visually dreary) of a 3-way cast and limited settings, also it contains the accomplishment of its Jazz-fused soundtrack.
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.
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.
Even though it's Polanski's first feature, it can very easily compete with many of his subsequent films for the title of his greatest directorial achievement.Right from the start of this movie you are able to feel its strange and tense atmosphere, which is like a great power that gives this title a tremendously thrilling aura.Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka) are on their way to the port in order to spend one free day on their beautiful yacht.
Every little thing that we hide from the world can erupt at this one single moment and change the way other will perceive us.Whether or not you are familiar with the amazing work of Roman Polanski, you should definitely watch Knife in the Water, as it is one of the most unusual psychological thrillers ever made.
This film puts you in close quarters with a married couple on a boating trip and the young hitchhiker whom they pick up on the way.
Director Roman Polanski does the best work of his distinguished career here--he lets the drama unfold realistically and although much appears to be the same at the end of the movie as it was in the beginning, as a viewer you get the unmistakable feeling that each character will carry the experience around with them for the rest of their lives..
I think that KNIFE IN THE WATER is Polanski's best film, because of its simplicity and depth.
The rest is Polanski's genius: the eternal ethical problems of human being synthetized in a pair of scenes and dialogues on a boat (jealousy, love, hate, madness, guilty).In the same line of composition, I could recommend CUL DE SAC, a film with an excellent plot but not superior to this movie..
For me, I think the hype is too much: all I really learned from this picture is that Polanski likes wild jazz music and that in Poland people will steal your windshield wipers.Critic Michael Koresky has a much deeper view of the film, saying it expresses class warfare, class envy, eroticism, tension, isolation and carries an "atmosphere of recumbent terror".
A couple , Andrzej and Krystyna is on their way to go sailing.They pick up a young hitchhiker.They invite him to go sailing with them.There he has to learn all this stuff on how to sail.He finds the sexy wife attractive.The tension between Andrzej and the boy builds and eventually he taunts the hitchhiker with the boy's knife.Nóz w wodzie, Knife in the Water in English from 1962 is directed by Roman Polanski.This was his first and only feature film he made in Poland.After this he left to France, then to England and U.S.This is famous for being the first Polish film to show a woman stripping.Krystyna's part is played by Jolanta Umecka.Leon Niemczyk plays Andrzej.The young boy's part, that Polanski himself originally wanted to play went to Zygmunt Malanowicz.Polanski proves that you don't need more than three actors to make a good movie.It never gets boring, there is some tension between these characters.It may not be the best movie by Polanski, the man behind many masterpieces, but it is a good movie nevertheless..
Roman Polanski's feature film debut is a competently crafted, patiently narrated & finely performed thriller that finds the then-new filmmaker showcasing his firm grip on the storytelling elements as he manages to carve out some tense moments from its simple premise & minimal setting.The story of Knife in the Water follows a middle-aged couple who, while on their way to a sailing trip, encounter a young hitchhiker and invite him along.
As the day progresses, tension increases between the two men as they both start vying for the attention of the same woman.Co-written & directed by Roman Polanski (best known for Rosemary's Baby & The Pianist), the majority of Knife in the Water takes place aboard a yacht and is solely focused on its characters, whose arcs are well-written and the rivalry & sexual tension between them is what drives this tale.Camera is manoeuvred in an atypical fashion, employing unconventional angles & close-ups to provide some really interesting shots which in turn complements its black & white photography while sound & score also play their role in creating an atmosphere that brims with uncertainty.Coming to the performances, there are only three cast members in the film, two playing the ageing couple & third being the hitchhiker who goes sailing with them.
(Interesting how the men's names in this film are not once mentioned, perhaps a metaphor for their lack of really wanting to know or understand each other) The younger wife of the older man looks as if she's resigned herself to this kind of behavior in men and seems to expect it.
The husband only seems interested in playing more games to demonstrate his superior skills at anything the younger man might try, including throwing the knife into a cutting board on the wall after he see's the younger one do it.The ending is perfect, the older man left sitting uncertain at the crossroads in his car, his wife knowing and having spoken the truth smugly seems half amused at his dilemma.
Five minutes later, depending on how good your subtitle translation is, they're justified in inviting him to go yachting with them.Young Polanski made some beautiful films in black and white, all influenced by Hitchcock.
Definitely not Criterion.) But despite allowing for gaps of dialogue, I can't imagine any justification that would make me accept why a man would invite a stranger onto his private boat along with his beautiful wife; and then not even seem bothered when she lies around in her bikini and begins looking longingly at the hitchhiker.Also, the jazz score feels inappropriate at times, being not composed specifically for the film, and suggesting a carefree mood, rather than a purpose-composed score which might have suggested something deeper or sinister going on underneath the placid surface of the film.CONCLUSION: surprised I was ambivalent, when I've loved all other early Polanski..
impressive KNIFE IN THE WATER(cuchillo en el agua in spanish)was made inPoland(his first feature film) but you can't consider Polanski a"Polish"filmaker this movie is more close to France than Eastern Europe even
As it stands, "Knife in the Water" is a beautifully-shot film; Polanski shows deft skill in composing his scenes, and (for a while, at least) keeps us engrossed in the story in spite of the limited setting.
Some have called this movie a thriller, but for me this is a drama with some tense moments.Andrzej and Krystyna, a couple on the way to the marina, pick up a young hitchhiker and give him a ride.
For the entire running time, director Roman Polanski {with his debut feature-length film} slowly and surely draws together the subtle suspense, the gradually-building tension such that we know that the situation will inevitably explode into a spat of violence.