Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, Zygmunt Malanowicz
I do not doubt or even question the importance of this film to the career of Roman Polanski, but I’ve never really enjoyed it. I was too young to get it at all when I first saw it in high school on TV. (Mostly, it bored me then.) I “get it” now and I can appreciate it, but I have to think long and hard to come up with a Polanski movie I wouldn’t rather be watching when I see it. When this last ran locally, I said: “Roman Polanski’s debut feature Knife in the Water (1962) is the film that made him an international figure in the cinematic world — and ironically, still stands as his only Polish-language feature, since it led to his departure for France and then to British cinema. The appeal of the film — a simple three-character story designed for getting the most out of a very small budget — is obvious even today. The movie is an economical exercise in the growing sexual and socio-economic tension that takes place in one afternoon when a middle-aged sportswriter and his much younger wife pick up a hitchhiking student and then invite him along for a day on their sailboat. The impetus of it all comes from the aging writer’s desire to show off how much more worldly and knowledgeable he is than the young man — and what results from that.”
Full review here: http://avl.mx/qg
Classic World Cinema by Courtyard Gallery will present Knife in the Water Friday, Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. at Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts St., River Arts District, upstairs in the Railroad Library). Info: 273-3332, www.ashevillecourtyard.com
In Brief: Roman Polanski’s first feature has become an art house staple and retains its importance in the filmmaker’s oeuvre. It’s a good, solid character study of three characters—an upwardly mobile (in Polish terms) couple and the brash young man they ill-advisedly take with them on their boat. It’s masterfully done and contains many of the elements of the mature Polanski, making it a key work, but it’s also rather slow going.
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