To me, this movie is perfection.

Sadly Over-hyped

The acting in this movie is really good.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is my first time to watch a Polish film. I remember the background music of vintage jazz in it is comfortable, especially the sound of saxophone is nice. This story seems a relaxed sailing trip of a middle-aged couple and a young man at first glance, but we can enjoy each relationship. It's sometimes peace, and sometimes like comedy. I couldn't stop laughing for a while because the funny scene appears so unexpected. After watching it, we can find the good points of a sailing trip, and we'll imagine Poland as such a nice place. It's very hard to understand what's going on because of turn of events at the end of the story, but it's wonderful.

KNIFE IN THE WATER is a psychological drama about ego, pride and sexuality.A sports writer and his beautiful wife are driving to a lake to go sailing. A young hitchhiker joined them. The young man does not know much about sailing and boats. His host assumes the role of a captain and constantly provokes him. Meanwhile, tension gradually builds between the sports writer and the hitchhiker as they vie for the attentions of a beautiful woman. She gives enough attention to both men. However, tension has quickly grew into a psychological war between the two of them. A knife and a naked woman found their places between jealousy and sexual desire...Mr. Polanski has made an impressive and unusual scenery, which, at the same time, fully corresponds to a suspense story and humorous tones. His direction is a kind of salvation from anxiety and monotony. Sex is the culmination of relief in this case. The protagonists are psychologically isolated in a certain way. The cause of the conflict between an older and a younger man is stubbornness. A sexual desire is, perhaps, a hidden motive, which is not very pronounced. Therefore, their rivalry is very interesting. A woman skilfully connects two hot sparks in this film. She criticizes both men, after the final climax, in an ironic way, which is the culmination of pathos in this case.The dialogues are direct and sharp. Characterization is very good.Leon Niemczyk as Andrzej is an unpleasant man and a nasty husband who thinks he knows everything. He's a character, who is not sure of his quality, so he makes fun of other people's clumsiness. Jealousy has stimulated a hatred in his case. Zygmunt Malanowicz as Young Man is a curious fake. His character is rebellious, impulsive and unstable. Those attitudes hide his fears. Jolanta Umecka as Krystyna is a beautiful, attractive and provocative woman. She has preserved a few grams of contempt for both men.This is a very disturbing view of human fears, humiliations, conflicts and sexuality.

My summary line was Krystyna's (Jolanta Umecka) description of the young hitchhiker stated directly to him. She could just as easily have told her husband Andrzej (Leon Niemczyck) the same thing, he being twice the age of the hitchhiker but just as dumb. Reading from the DVD cover of the movie, we're told that this film has 'gut-churning suspense in Polanski's seminal psychological thriller', and in it he revealed his delight in exploring sexual and class boundaries with ruthless precision.Well excuse me for missing all of this, but the main hang-up for me was just how big a jerk Andrzej was. Right from the outset, there was absolutely no reason for him to practically run the guy over with his car, only to wind up giving him a ride and then virtually begging him to board the boat with Andrzej and his wife for an overnight sail. None of what Andrzej subjected the young man to had any motivation behind it that was explained or stated, and it wouldn't have been a big chore to do so to help the viewer understand why Andrzej was acting the way he was. For his part, the actions of the hitchhiker were questionable as well. Why accept the offer for the boat ride when the only interaction between the two men had already had negative consequences? Having read a few of the other reviews presented on this board, it seems the predominant word used to describe the interaction of the two was that of posturing. Well that's all well and good, but in that case, the set up should have done a better job of creating that tension based on Krystyna's presence. Yes it's true she was there on the boat and managed to flaunt her physical attributes in a way to arouse her husband's jealousy, but I never got the impression that 'winning the female' was what the picture was about. The subtext with the knife was always a palpable threat for violence, but that never occurred either except in a marginal sort of way, and it was certainly less than gut-churning.Simply put, it seems that the critical accolades stem from the director's reputation and not on the merits of the picture itself. If there's anything to recommend here it would be the creative cinematography, but it comes with an endurance test of ninety four minutes of waiting for something to happen.

A man and his wife go sailing for the afternoon, taking a hitchhiker with them. As a storm approaches, they are forced to stay on the boat overnight. The threat of violence lurks.This film will be of interest to anyone who admires the work of Roman Polanski. Polanski was said to be only the second protégé of the Lodz Film School to achieve international success. The first was Andrzej Wajda, and we can safely assume that Polanski was far more successful and influential.This film in particular earned him an Oscar nomination for best foreign film, and catapulted him to fame by putting him on the cover of Time magazine in 1963. For me, I think the hype is too much: all I really learned from this picture is that Polanski likes wild jazz music and that in Poland people will steal your windshield wipers.Critic Michael Koresky has a much deeper view of the film, saying it expresses class warfare, class envy, eroticism, tension, isolation and carries an "atmosphere of recumbent terror". This is grossly overstating the facts. There is some tension, and being that the film takes place on boat, isolation naturally follows. But the rest is a bit of a stretch.The class envy or warfare aspect you can only see if told to look for it, which leads me to believe it is probably not there. One man is an author and another a hitchhiker, but any struggle they may have does not appear to arise from class. Eroticism is also a stretch, as I kept thinking the film would become erotic, but it borders on it a few times without crossing over. The closest to anything erotic in this film is a young man in tight shorts, and this is hardly sexually appealing. The atmosphere of recumbent terror is a beautiful phrase but would be better used on another film.The film is strong in the area of visuals. Polanski has made a striking film in contrasting black and white, his angles and use of zooms and wide shots is excellent. So, on a technical level, I cannot say anything bad about the film. But the plot is just not there. I spent the film waiting for something to break... the tension would rise and lower, but never reached a crescendo. I cannot call this one of my favorite Polanski films.