1962, Dir Roman Polanski, B&W, Anchor Bay, DVD, PG, 90 mins
This black and white film from behind the iron curtain in 1962 is quite a revelation. Like: they had yachts in Communist states? Who knew?
And of course when Roman Polanski first showed it the censors shelved it for over a year as celebrating a western lifestyle. It’s the Polish director’s first feature-length film and develops as a tale of classic rivalry between an older successful guy (played by Leon Niemczyk), and a seemingly dispossessed youth (Zygmunt Malanowicz) over the older man’s young wife (Jolanta Umecka) as they are thrown together on a 24 hour cruise in a 30-footer in 1960s Poland. Shot well before his disgrace as a paedophile, this shows Polanski’s emerging directorial brilliance; you don’t even notice that the film isn’t in colour, or that we are reading sub-titles – the storyline holds us in a relentless grip as we see the young man’s punky attitude slowly affect the established couple, in separate ways. The film has a spare, spartan feel while at the same time many of the scenes are very sexualised, and yes you guessed it, the knife of the title, does go in the water and the act begets a reprise that would strike a chord with any sailor – though not as you might think.
The film is great for portraying how a dreadful tension emerges, between the players, almost surreptitiously. It’s well known for its superb editing, and there are very few films that show boat-life like this, and how we behave on small cabin cruisers. DH
Interesting discussion with Jeffrey Wolf, ACE for film buffs on Knife in the Water: