Knife in the Water [Poland 1962]

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Director: R. Polański
Cinematographer: J. Lipman

This simple drama, which according to Wajda marked the end of socialist realism in Poland and thereby opened up the doors for great Polish films, has been highly rated by many but to me it does not seem particularly interesting.

The strong point of the film is its subtlety and tension. There is a continual feeling of discomfort and unease as the characters battle psychologically with each other. Admittedly Polański pulls off a great deal of conflict here with minimal use of overly obvious cues.

But the cinematography is fairly average and the psychological exploration not particularly deep. It may be little more than a film about the insecurity of the powerful and their need to humiliate others in order to massage their own ego. This is not very insightful stuff.

One does have to admire the pure technical work involved in getting a film like this to work, considering almost the entire film takes place on a yacht on the water, largely in motion. There is a very small space in which the camera can move, so obviously the crew had to get the maximum possible out of it, which they seem to have done successfully. This makes the film a bit of a tour de force.

An interesting aspect is the way in which the film portrays economic inequality. As is well known, and confirmed in an interview in the film about this film, 'Ticket to the West', the idea of a sport reporter like the protagonist living in such luxury (owning a car and a yacht) is absurd; rather, Polański apparently wanted it to be a 'symbol' of the newly emerging bureaucrat stratum. Of course it actually seems this is much more to strengthen the device of a powerful older man versus the young, powerless man than anything else. There are a few other digs--while the protagonist enjoys his yacht, there are some who are in the business of stealing windshield wipers (presumably to sell them on the black market). And the female character tells the young student that he can be just like the protagonist if he works hard enough--part of a dialogue perhaps inserted by Polański (judging from an interview) in order to make the film more likely to be produced--but nonetheless leaving the feeling that it is making the comment that the protagonist is a rather distasteful character even if he has material wealth.