Directed by Roman Polanski Screenplay Jerzy Skolimowski, Jacub Goldberg, Roman Polanski Cinematography by Stanislaw Zylewicz Edited by Halina Prugar Music by Krzysztof T. Komeda With Leon Niemczyk Andrzej Jolanta Umecka Krystyna Zygmunt Malanowicz Young Man Produced by Stanislaw Zylewicz Runtime 94 minutes.

A shadowy figure comes through a door and approaches a sleeping man, he reaches into his coat pocket pulls out a knife, opens it and stabs the man in the chest. The killer then walks out the door and closes it. A peeping tom looks into a bathroom window and watches a nude young woman drying her hair with a towel. His voyeuristic activity is interrupted when a man dressed in a bathrobe is seen collecting milk bottles. He retreats and then goes back to his voyeurism once the man is gone. Now instead of the young woman, the man in the bathrobe is seen brushing his teeth and slowly turning his head to smile at the peeping tom. These separate actions describe what occurs in two of Roman Polanski’s short films, Murder (1957) and Teeth Smile (1957) made while he was attending the State Film School in Lodz, Poland. Both films also reveal themes that Polanski was to return to time and again throughout his work – man’s claustrophobic confinement and helplessness in a darkly pessimistic, unredeeming world. The Criterion Collection DVD Knife in the Water provides a unique opportunity to examine the early films of Roman Polanski and see the influences that helped shape his world view. The best way to watch this excellent two-disc set is to begin with the eight short films, a kind of first course, before going to the meal itself, Polanski’s premier feature film, Knife in the Water (1962). This allows one to see his early student work and some of the award-winning short films that contributed to his success as a Second Generation filmmaker in Cold War Poland. One can also see the external influences on Polanski’s work that come into play with each film. Influences such as surrealism, absurdist theater, cinema verite, and a kind of Fellini-esque magical realism.

All of the short films are in black-and-white, and utilize minimal dialogue. Polanski’s aim here is for the visuals to relate the story. As Polanski states in the video interview that accompanies Disc One, while attending the State Film School at Lodz, if you failed the photography course you were expelled. Polanski’s background in art and photography is readily apparent in his compositional style, which is a voyeuristic approach sans any stylistic effects. It is the perfect accompaniment to his films. Polanski’s camera merely watches and records the events and characters it encounters. In Break Up the Dance (1957), for instance, Polanski uses a cinema verite approach to record the activities of a group of young hooligans as they attack and literally break up an outside dance party. The aforementioned, Murder and Teeth Smile, simply records the active and passive violations of their subject. In the surrealistic short film, The Lamp (1959) inanimate objects are given a life of their own through lighting and sound effects. When Angels Fall (1959) is a character study of an elderly woman who works as a lavatory attendant. Reminiscences of her early life are provided in color sequences and her drab present condition is rendered in black-and -white. This almost Felliniesque character is apparently saved at the film’s end when an angel crashes through the glass ceiling of the lavatory. This particular film was Polanski’s senior thesis production. And as Peter Cowie notes in his liner essay, “Until The Pianist in 2002, When Angels Fall was the only Polanski film to refer to the wars that transfigured Europe in the twentieth century, and the short, hectic battle scenes have much to say about the arbitrary barriers that war can create between men.” One such scene from the film shows a soldier with his newly captured prisoner-of-war who is being held at gunpoint. The prisoner reaches into his coat and is shot by the soldier. It is then revealed that the prisoner was only getting two cigarettes for both to share. Three of the short films included on this disc are prime examples of Polanski’s interest in absurdist theater, particularly the work of Samuel Beckett.

Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) was the first Polanski film to receive international acclaim. The absurd context of the story concerns the intolerance of humanity to the outsider. Two men emerge from the sea carrying a wardrobe, wherever they go they encounter hostility, prejudice and violence. Exasperated they finally return, with the wardrobe, to the sea. The compact form of the film maintains its unity from beginning to end. Polanski leaves its interpretation open-ended and it has been variously interpreted as showing the intolerance of society toward anyone who is “different.” Polanski stated of the film that he “wanted to show a society that rejects the nonconformist or anyone who is in its eyes afflicted with a moral or physical burden.” The figure of “two male characters” continues in Polanski’s other absurdist short films. In The Fat and the Lean (1961) an obese master and his emaciated slave’s (Roman Polanski) eccentric behavior are witnessed by the camera. The slave continually attempts to free himself once his master has fallen asleep, only to be recaptured and seduced by his “benevolence.” And in his last short film, Mammals (1962) completed shortly before he began working on his maiden feature-length film, Polanski again shows the existential antics of two men attempting to travel across a snowy landscape with only a sled between them. Both try to outwit one another in order to ride the sled while the other pulls it. Once the sled is lost, they attempt the same activity, using one another’s backs. All of these absurdist pieces rely strictly on pantomime and physical activity, rather than dialogue. In this sense they can be compared not only to Samuel Beckett, particularly and almost strikingly so with Waiting for Godot, but also Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus and his existential endeavors. There is a cartoonish quality to these films that rarely occurs in Polanski’s subsequent features, although the zeitgeist is there.

Knife in the Water (1962) concerns only three characters – two men and a woman – on a boat. In many respects it is similar to the early work of yet another, initially absurdist dramatist - Harold Pinter. The claustrophobic atmosphere is set at the beginning when a man, Andrzej and his wife, Krystyna are traveling in a car, they narrowly miss running into a hitchhiker in the middle of the road. They give the young man a lift, and eventually take him along on their boating trip in Poland’s lake district. The compactness of the small yacht adds further to the sense of confinement which begins to effect its passengers. The tension between Andrzej and Krystyna is established early in the automobile and becomes further acerbated once the young man accompanies them. At one point Andrzej tells his wife, after she has objected to his abusive treatment of the young man, “If two men are on board one is the skipper.” This sense of maintaining one’s self-enpowerment through power games and sexual politics continues throughout the film, building in several scenes of mental and physical competition between Andrzej and the young man. In some, Andrzej gets the upperhand, especially in his knowledge of sailing. And in others involving physicality (climbing the masthead, knife-throwing, holding a heated pan barehanded) the young man comes out ahead. When this competitiveness reaches a climax, the young man falls overboard and is presumed drown. He resurfaces after Andrzej has left to ostensibly get the police, and Krystyna and he make love in her husband’s absence. Triangular composition is both thematically and visually utilized. Photographically it is out of necessity caused by the physical confines of the boat itself. This also adds to the deep-focus compositions. Thematically it is the triangular psychological relationship of Pinteresque drama, where tensions are mounting just below the surface of things. Even the short, clipped dialogue (which Polanski and Skolimowski admit pairing down to its essentials) is Pinteresque. At films end we (as an audience) are aware that the young man is safe (having just witnessed his leaving the boat after making love to Krystyna) but the mental games begin again between Andrzej and his wife, once inside the car, as they sit (physically and figuratively) at a crossroads.

Knife in the Water was criticized by the Polish government upon its initial release, the main objection being that it was an unflattering portrait of Poles and had no social relevance. Historically it is important for being among the first Polish films to concern itself with a contemporary setting and with real people. Its use of an excellent jazz score by composer Krzysztof Komeda was also a coup because jazz was still seen as being a decadent Western influence. Because of its reception and the creative freedom the West offered, Polanski left Poland. The Criterion DVD offers a unique opportunity to see the early film work of a compelling and important film artist at the beginning of his career. A note is provided in the liner material, stating that “Director Roman Polanski has been intimately involved in the preparation of this disc. At his request the step function has been disabled during the playback of the feature film.” This means that you cannot fast forward or reverse the film at anytime. The pause function is enabled so that you can pause the film at any point, but neither can you step through the pause feature. At first this seemed rather disconcerting to me, especially in writing this review and wanting to go through material more readily. But, on second thought, it is very much in keeping with the voyeurism of Polanski’s film style.It forces you to watch the film unfold and the characters reveal themselves before Polanski’s ever present camera-eye.

Ronald Wilson is an Independent Scholar from Lawrence, Kansas.