Knife in the Water is the kind of film that works beautifully at making so much out of seemingly so little. A little tale of a couple who ask a hitch-hiker they pick up to come along with them for a sail on the lakes is all the story there is. But within that story are little bits that keep the story pumping, alive. There's also a style that lends itself to a kind of film-making that was just budding with the new-wave movements of the 60's.

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.

2) Krzysztof Komeda's jazz soundtrack. Polanski uses the riffs of the soft, easy-going side of the weekend-out; the up-beat pacing when a humorous situation occurs when the hitch-hiker loses control of the boat; the variations that sometimes occur with the simple shots of a boat sailing fast and slow across the water. Komeda's score for the film is among one of the better ones I've ever heard, in regards to it being a great work on it's own, and to corresponding to the film (he would later provide the memorable theme to Polanski's Rosemary's Baby).

The acting itself is interesting in what is not said between them, what has to be said by their expressions. The fact that the three have distinct personalities adds to the tenseness- it would've been more conventional if the hitch-hiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz) wanted to come on and stay, but Andzrej (Leon Miemczyk) is the more insistent one. Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka),meanwhile, never says more than the other two, but is perhaps smarter as well. 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).

Simply, Knife in the Water is an observant, amusing, eye-widening experience, and it ranks as one of the premiere debuts of cinema. A+

I liked this film more than I thought I would. Perhaps this was because the last Polanski film I saw was REPULSION--a technically well-made but repulsive film (that few average people would ever want to see). It is a very simple story with only three characters but manages, somehow, not to bore the viewer or give in to what is expected. For example, when the couple met the hitchhiker, I expected the old cliché of the "psychotic drifter" who would ultimately terrorize and/or kill them. But, as the film unfolded, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting and he never dismembered or terrorized them at all. In fact, one of the OTHER main characters turned out to be the jerk! Now that's interesting.

Why not an even higher score? Well, the ending of the movie just didn't make sense. The nasty husband jumped overboard to try and rescue the drifter but the husband appears to have drowned. BUT, when the wife and drifter take the sailboat back to shore, the nasty husband meets the boat!!! How could this have happened unless maybe there was a submarine in the lake that rescued him?! My daughter thinks maybe he could walk on water, but that's a pretty rare occurrence. This is a pretty big mistake, now that I think about it--and it's a shame since the rest of the movie is so good.

ADDENDUM--I received a message on IMDb from Chris-Krzysztof indicating that this was NOT the way the film ended. His post is given below:

"I guess you missed something in the subtitles or there was something "lost in translation". After having searched the boy for some time the couple thinks he had drowned, they have a fight and when the husband disappears, he's not searching the boy anymore, but he's swimming to the shore to a police station to confess what happened (mostly to prove his wife he's not a coward). In the morning, they meet at the shore (the husband of course didn't have enough courage to go the police, he's making excuses that it was in the night, he was almost naked, couldn't get into the car - the keys were on the yacht). When they leave the marina, he stops the car at the crossroads, where we can see a sign (not sure if it was translated) "Do posterunku MILICJI obywatelskiej, 10 km" (To the POLICE station, 10 km). And the car remains there, so we don't know which way he chooses ... "

As I responded to him, in the version I saw, this is not how the ending was translated. Considering I think Chris speaks Polish, I am sure he is right. However, many older films exist in multiple versions and translations and I think the version I saw was mistranslated. As a result, I am adding this addendum to clarify things.

Roman Polanski's first feature-length movie is this Polish effort, set almost entirely on a yacht. It's a three-hander about a vacationing couple whose lives are interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious hitchhiker and the drama that follows. Seen today, it's very much a predecessor of the famous psycho-thriller as popularised by the likes of DEAD CALM, although the thriller aspects are much less overt here. This plays out as more of a psychological drama exploring the relationships between the main players and how a kind of unsaid, unseen power struggle plays out. The performances are naturalistic and engaging and the direction is strong enough to keep you engaged despite the lack of incident.