Essay Sample on Polanski's Knife in the Water: Minimalism in a Dangerous Atmosphere

Introduction

A film with a dangerous atmosphere almost every time and an intimate setting on a limited space is what Roman Polanski brings into the film industry in Knife in The Water. This particular case has perfected the art of minimalism in that Polanski only has three characters in a yacht setting in Poland's Masurian Lake District to bring out his intended overall message. The works of Polanski are characterized by non-conformity and isolation, and this is no different. To understand his scheme of film production, a closer look at his personal life comes in handy. Most directors find inspiration from the encounters in their life, and or stories from their creative minds. Interviews with Polanski have, for so long, been avoided. Hence researchers have turned to his works to understand the connection between his personal life and film director role, or rather, the messages he tries to pass across.

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Polanski's style of the film was as a result of his rebellious nature after joining a five-year film production program at the National Film School in Lodz. Trained by Andrzej Wajda, a renowned film director whose works embrace and cherish most aspects of Poland's history. The ideas emphasized by Wajda were to have each film produced with a direct social connection. The sole reason as to why most of Polanski's works were rejected by Poland's ministry of culture, including the Knife in The Water. The themes featured in Polanski's films are an escape, violence, brutal irony, claustrophobia, and relationships. In this particular film, Polanski uses a married couple and a drifter to convey solitude, sexuality, paranoia, voyeurism, and claustrophobia. The secluded setting enables Polanski to communicate uncertainty by the use of aggressive storms that abruptly turn dead calm, life-threatening situations, especially towards the drifter as they fight for dominance, with nowhere to run to for rescue in case of any such threatening occurrences. In other words, the weather changes could signify the mood changes frequently in this thriller.

The intensity of the emotions and tension in the film is well achieved from scene to scene, keeping the audience keen to the end. In the very first scene, we are introduced to a different couple with Krystyna, the wife, driving through a long and narrow road. The husband, Andrzej, seems unsatisfied with Krystyna's skills behind the wheels and arrogantly corrects her, pulls over, and they exchange. We are introduced to interpersonal tension between the couple. This is the foundation onto which Polanski's stories are built, a life of either unspoken pain, secrets or even untold secrets or when a third party comes in question, say the young drifter, who is almost knocked down by Andrzej, and later invited to join them to bring out the unexpected connection between lovers and strangers. This style of balancing between emotions and tension is somewhat magical, and Polanski has mastered it, making this film a masterpiece.

The couple pretends that everything between them is okay, Andrzej portrays the image of a brave and successful, but this does not seem to be the reality as he tries to prove his dominance over the hitchhiker, who again has an unpredictable character and hidden motives whose true nature is revealed when he tries to outsmart Andrzej and showcase his dominance. Krystyna plays her role as a devoted wife and almost always comes in to rescue the hitchhiker incase the fight for dominance becomes toxic. It is ironic as she is an unsatisfied wife. Therefore, it is tough for the audience to identify with any of the three characters in this film.

To create envy in the inferior counterpart, both Andrzej and the hitchhiker, or rather, the youth as he is referred to in this film, compete whenever there is a chance to prove dominance over such things as who can blow up air into mattresses or the crocodile toy faster, who has faster reflexes as the youth demonstrates with the knife, who can ride the boat better, who can tie the notes better. The three parties have been secluded and define their new typical environment with the two men fighting for the ultimate prize of the affection of the devoted wife. Andrzej demonstrates his dominance by making the youth look stupid when the youth rows the boat determined, only to find out that the ship was being directed by Andrzej to go in circles and hence making fun of the youth. The hitchhiker gets angry, they both face each other, and the hitchhiker throws out the pedal into the lake and refuses to fetch it. Still, Krystyna plays the role of amending the wounded egos between them when she dives into the lake to bring it expecting nothing in return.

The young hitchhiker, however, is seen to put away his toxic behaviour at some point, he even encourages Krystyna to sing and is willing to be vulnerable and refrain from fighting for the role of dominance. Still, Andrzej will cling on demonstrating his superiority, even at the expense of the hitchhiker's life. When Andrzej holds the hitchhiker's knife and refuses to give it back, leading to it falling into the water, tosses the hitchhiker off the boat who is saved from falling into the water by Krystyna. At this point, the hitchhiker's manhood is completely stolen from him, and he fights back, Andrzej punches him into the water to show his strength to his wife. Krystyna doesn't play respectful roles anymore and jumps into the water to save the hitchhiker. The ashamed hitchhiker hides from Andrzej, who outmatched him in the game of dominance, and the couple believes the hitchhiker to have drowned. Andrzej is accused of being both a coward and a murderer, and Krystyna suggests that he turns himself in. The husband tries to demean her and make her understand that he is still the man, then jumps off the boat for the shores. It is at this time when the hitchhiker reappears, following the departure of his threatening masculine figure, Krystyna slaps the hitchhiker, who, unlike Andrzej, does not defend his ego. Then they kiss and have sex on the boat before the hitchhiker escapes, and Krystyna is reunited with her husband. She challenges Andrzej, who is unaware of the hitchhiker's survival, to turn himself in or live a cowardice life, situations in which he loses, then proceeds to narrate her infidelity with the hitchhiker, which Andrzej does not believe why she could sleep with an inferior man to him.

The setting is the most important in the work of Polanski. The lake setting enables him to avoid the requirements of the Dominant Soviet society. They are portrayed as not under the influence of power but have identities to preserve bassed on the environment. In the same way, they interact within the boat set, Polanski is trying to portray how they would behave in a party environment or a meeting.

The knife helps Polanski achieve the typical style in the blade in the water. To some extent, the knife symbolizes the awkward conflict that exists between Andrzej and hitchhiker. This conflict is about Krystyna, and they alternately stab the sharp knife between the other's stretched out fingers. To some extent, it would be used by filmmakers to symbolize its cinematographic meaning which essentially states that a film has to be cut. Like it was the case for this particular film, it was edited as recommended by Skolimowski, a graduate of the Lodz school, to be shortened into a 24-hour duration to intensify the tension and emotion within the scenes. Therefore, the fight between the different generations of the filmmakers during Polanski's era is well represented in the fight between the two men. The sole purpose of a knife is to cut, but in this film, it finds no function as wife also prefers her butter knife to hitchhiker's knife when cutting radish for their lunch. We only get to see the knife used ones by Andrzej when cutting the halyard rope after hitting a sandbank.

The knife's purpose has not been clearly outlined in this film, and for this purpose, I chose to go by this film for the following reason. For an audience searching for the function and virtues of the knife, either good or bad, that could be the function Polanski intended to have the knife have. The symbolic discovery of the knife is indeed the knife's function. Since to reveal its virtues, a knife requires a human being, the characters present in the film are the reasons as to why the knife has failed to disclose its meaning. This means, no matter what the knife did, just like in ordinary human lives, it was alienated, and the laws of symbolic violence violated it, and the only choice it was left with was only but to sink. What the writer is trying to communicate is the virtues that are unique to human beings such as power, dangerous, and sharp among others are shared with objects, meaning that more human characters get lost when objectified, and this is always happening. Therefore, to concur the mortal sphere of existence, man will require inventions, which are lifeless.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the choice for this film review came in handy when understanding the fears that human being has daily that subject them to conflict against their competitors. If the characters in this film identified with the knife, in such a way that they do not envy it for such virtues as power, dangerous, sharpness, which they lack, instead, share their attributes with this object, rooted to life, there would not be conflict. When we view such an object as rooted in life, we establish a good relationship that could mean that we do not use tools to show dominance, in case of competitive conflict. Still, we could use tools to have a better relationship with others for the virtues we possess will be shared with such weapons. The use on the knife or any other instrument or object in life does not have to reflect human triumph over life at the expense of other people. Instead, it should be to enhance unity and coexistence. A knife's virtue as a tool is to cut, and it's upon us as human beings to question our merits as to whether or not a demand for lifeless objects appears hostile.

Works Cited

Knife In The Water. 1962. [film] Directed by R. Polanski.