Customer Reviews

Knife In The Water ( Nóz w wodzie ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - France ]

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Polanski's classic is one of my all time favorite films and Criterion has done a fine job transferring it to DVD, hence the 5-star rating. Viewers should know, however, that at the request of the director, Criterion has disabled the step frame function as well as the ability to scan forward or backward. Only the chapter up and down feature is still functional as well as the ability to place the program in still frame without single frame advance or reverse. A liner note on the inside of the package alerts viewers only to the missing step frame feature but not to the fact that these other features have ALSO been disabled. And there is no mention made of ANY of these missing features anywhere on the outside of the packaging. Needless to say, not being able to scan forward or backward is a major inconvenience since it's impossible to review a scene without returning all the way to the beginning of the chapter. This is especially unfortunate with a subtitled film. If a line of dialogue flies by while you're busy admiring the visuals, you're out of luck since there's no easy way to back up quickly. All of this might have been less objectionable if the DVD had been more heavily chaptered, but alas, that is not the case, either. Let's hope that this is one very peculiar concession to a director that is not repeated any time soon.

A fascinating, suspensful film debut for Roman Polanski, who already shows great promise with his amazingly original camera angles and creative shots. However, Criterion allowed Polanski to dictate the terms of the disc in which the step back/forward function is disabled. This is maddening, especially if one misses a subtitle or two when pondering some of his amazing shots.

Another complaint I have is about the subtitles. I don't speak Polish, but it seems to me there is a lot of spoken dialogue that is not translated into English. I can recall several instances when the characters speak, but no subtitles appear. A harmless error, or a glaring mistake? I don't have an answer.

This doesn't detract from the movie itself, which is excellent. Five stars would have been given if not for these flaws. However, I do hope Criterion does not repeat the very rude mistake of disabling disc functions in any other future editions of their releases. Another reviewer got it right: "Polanski controls his set, not my DVD player."

Three people aboard a fairly leisurely sailboat excursion on a Polish lake, sounds rather dull, but Roman Polanski's first feature length film is an absorbing intense drama in which even the mundane manual rigors of sailing becomes an exciting metaphor of human manipulation. The three characters, (the only three people seen in the entire movie, as a cost saving measure Polanski tells us in the DVD extra), are as perfectly formed and developed, understated and powerful, as we could expect from an Ingmar Bergman troupe of actors. Unlike most DVD extra director interviews, Polanski's inclusion of surprising facts about the film actually enhances the viewing of it. We learn of the difficulties involved with getting a film accepted by the then, (1962), socialist minded, communist controlled Polish film board, which explains some unusual dialogue concerning the difficulties of being a university student. The dialogue was added only after the censor board determined the film was of no social value. The actress, Jolanta Umecka, in an accomplished solid performance, was discovered at a municipal swimming pool, specifically for the casting of the film, and had no previous acting credentials. The actor, Zygmunt Malanowicz, had an inappropriate high pitched voice, so it was dubbed by Polanski's own speaking voice. The film itself is perfect satisfying drama. The DVD extras, including several Polanski student films, makes it shine all the more.

Isn't it peculiar that a film without overly dramatic twists, cliffhangers, devoid of needless talk, noise, and special effects can be so appealing, enticing, and beautiful... Body language, particularly gestures and glances, play crucial roles here. The most is said when nothing is spoken. The film is both serene and haunting. It leaves an unforgettable, yet intangible, impression that I remember very distinctly today, over 5 years after seeing it. This is an experience not to be missed.

This film isn't among the top 100 in the AFI listing, but it should be. I agree with the previous comments about its potential dis-favor with modern viewers, but as an artistic film this one ranks way up there. The photograpy is superb and in a medium of black and white.

The story line is about a wealty husband who thinks very little about his wife's abilities, claiming that she would be nothing without him. The couple picks up a teen on the road on the way to sailing, and the husband begins a competive power struggle with the more sensitive and naive hitch-hiker. The resulting response is a secretive and rebellious affair between the wife and the teen.

Nearly all of the film takes place in a cramped sailboad in a lake in Poland. The filming is absolutely beautiful. The overall tone is very relaxing, and at times slow-paced for "modern" action seekers. It has a "retro" sixties feel to it with a solo sax as musical accompliment. This is an intelligent movie for people who really love good photography.

Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water is a masterful piece of filmmaking, and surprisingly the director's first full-length feature. To the uninitiated, Polanski is the man who's vision gave a signature edge to films such as Chinatown, The Pianist, and the film adaptation of Rosemary's Baby.

A graduate of the state-run (and communist backed) Polish Film School, Polanski made the controversial effort with his first film to not only avoid any state propoganda, but to actually call into question the very topics that nearly every Polish film to date had been required to avoid; namely the interaction between the upper and lower class, or more accurately the "haves" versus the "have nots."

The film revolves around a wealthy man, Andrzej, his attractive wife Krystyna, and a young, unnamed hitchiker that Andrzej decides to bring along on the couple's evening out on a boat, more to toy with him than anything else.

The first thing that will probably strike most people about the film is the absolute harmony within each frame, especially once the trio pushes out on the lake. Polanski favors very long, complicated still shots in which the characters may move in and out of frame several times, but the angles are always in such a place as to accent, and occasionally even generate, the tension that permeates the entire movie. In addition, the weather in the film is nearly a character in and of itself, and overall the feeling of being on a boat and out in the elements is portrayed so incredibly that you're practically feeling the water splashing on your face. Quite remarkable for a mono, black and white movie shot in the early 60's on a handheld.

Of course, the scenery can add to a film, but what really makes it is the characters and their interplay, and rarely is this more important, or executed so well, as in Knife in the Water. While the title of the film seems to evoke something like Cape Fear, there's neither murder nor any real violence to speak of in the film. The knife of the title refers to the knife the young man carries on him, which he explains as being useful in the woods, but "useless on the water." It also acts as a rather obvious phallic symbol, changing hands as one man bests the other in seemingly trivial contests of significance, each trying to outdo the other as the wife essentially throws gasoline on a barely subdued fire.

I won't ruin the story or the events within it, but suffice to say that there are very marked levels of subtlety that come across, and the film plays wonderfully with the idea of the "unspoken but obvious". The dialouge is terse and typically very brief; it's what is unsaid that stings the most.

As far as the disc set itself, Criterion once again shows everyone why they're the first and last name in home film collection. The movie itself looks absolutely beautiful, with just the right amount of fine film grain, but nothing else. Distortion is nonexistant, and the picture is exactly as sharp as it should be. The sound is only in mono, but everything comes across perfectly clear, a critical point in a film such as this.

In addition, we get a very funny and informative interview with Polanski and the film's co-screenwriter Jerzy Skolimowski, which is very much worth the time to watch.

Disc 2 is a real treat for film fans, as it contains eight of Polanski's short films made while he was in film school. These rare gems illustrate how Polanski's style was developed, and even display some stylistic tendencies that he dropped before moving on to feature films. These will be more interesting to those studying film than anyone else, but the fact that they are included at all is a very nice addition indeed, and Criterion certaintly deserves a good number of brownie points for it.

In the end, this is a fascinating film delivered in a fantastic package that every film buff should have a copy of. Fantastic stuff all around.

A remarkably satisfying disc that gives viewers a crisp, virtually flawless transfer as well as lots of extras. Criterion should not, however, have agreed to Polanski's request disabling the search/forward and reverse functions. A truly dumb move that Criterion had best not repeat in future. Polanski gets to control his set, not my remote.

Superb film and bonus interview with Polanski. Definitely a must for any Polanski fan or film student. Like one other reviewer here, I'm also disappointed not to be able to fast forward to review through the material - esp. as it's the sort of film that's worth analysing shot-by-shot.

A married couple (played by Leon Niemczyk and Jolanta Umecka) on their way to the harbor and a yachting outing pick up a young hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz). From then on the two men engage each other in a childish but brutal war of wills, as each tries to outbully the other. Malanowicz joins the couple on their yacht and near the end falls overboard; when he doesn't surface Niemczyk dives in after him. A short while later Malanowicz re-emerges, hops back on board, and makes love with Umecka. Niemczyk and Umecka later confront each other with some upsetting truths about the incident.

This was Roman Polanski's first feature film, and it reveals what a master he was already; he knows exactly how to build the tension between Niemczyk and Malanowicz, heightening it ever more by having Umecka, who doesn't say or do much, always in the picture prancing around in her bikini or short sun dresses: the sexual tension is intense. Polanski's use of symbols - the knife, the pole, the wind directing the boat this way and that - is also masterful. Some think this is Polanski's best movie or that he never made better movies once he came to America, but they must be forgetting CHINATOWN. The second disc of short features is okay, but not up to the feature film.

The forward/backward function doesn't work on this edition. You can only jump through the chapters in the "Knife" while on the otherwise brilliantly important Disc 2, with eight early Polanski student and short films, you can't move at all. It's not that these films are ever boring or that you can't watch them repeatedly. But sometimes you just want to skip back or forth to catch up a detail---
Otherwise, add a 28-minute live interview with Jerzy Skolimowski (coscripted + dialogue) and Polanski, this of course should be a definitive edition.