Knife in the Water
Pleasure Cruise Turns Tense in Roman Polanski's First Feature
Roman Polanski's debut feature is a sharp, masterful social satire and psychodrama that pits two disparate males on a boat in the middle of a lake along with a luscious female. The female's husband is a brutish, chauvinist bourgeois bully while the other is a feckless, rootless rogue. Polanski delicately dissects a gossamer-light script in hewing his portrait of class and societal breakdown. Knife In the Water is hypnotic, by turns dreamy and thought-provoking. Male sexual politics ramp up once this middle-class couple pick up a hitchhiker and take him along on their sailing excursion. The bully, Andrzej (Niemczyk), immediately feels his alpha status vis-à-vis his wife Krystyna (Umecka) threatened by the handsome stranger (Malanowicz). Andrzej challenges him to silly trials of manliness while the latter snaps and bites back with taunts and jibes. A storm comes up, the three retire to the galley where they play games, listen to a boxing match on the radio, the woman sings a song and the hitchhiker recites a poem (much to Andrzej's disgust and chagrin). At dawn the next day, push comes to shove and what starts off as a suspenseful disaster takes on sexual undercurrents. There are depths of class, sexual and social mores that Polanski effortlessly and beautifully dives into, coming up with provocative pearls every time. The acting, music and camerawork all weave together to create an unexpectedly magical, brilliantly crafted, intensely sensuous experience. — Jay Antani, Perihelion Journal
Knife in the Water
Thu January 29, 2009, 7:00 & 9:00, Muenzinger Auditorium
Poland, 1962, Polish, B&W, 94 min, unrated, 35mm (1.37:1)
Tickets
10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission.
$7 w/UCB student ID,
$7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.
Parking
Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the
Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters
along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.
RTD Bus
Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus
International Film Series
(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.
First Person Cinema
(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.
C.U. Film Program
(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil
Grillo.
Celebrating Stan
Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.
C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts
Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.