Repulsion, Knife In The Water : Polanski’s Best In B/W
I rarely ever hitch-hike, rarely give or take a lift. I always plan my trip/journey and give myself enough buffer time, be it public transport or my own vehicle. The only time I have given a ride was to a hawaldar who wanted to get home after his duty hours. And the only time I have asked for a lift was at the behest of my friend, while in Houston standing outside Randalls with 4 polybags filled with groceries. We actually lived very close to Randalls and always walked home, but on that day my roomie was feeling really lazy and a fellow countryman pitied our state and obliged.
Anyways, this youngman in Knife In The Water, never believed in planning a trip and he never ever saw either a weather report or a compass for directions and ofcourse he never shied from asking for a ride. He came right in front of a speeding car, totally overconfident that he would not be run-over, and he actually got a ride to a destination nowhere. His arrival onto the screen was so abrupt that even Polanski did not find time enough to give him a name. Andrzej, a much older man with all wisdom and a beautiful wife Krystyna, not-so-gladly offered the youngman a ride. The couple were on their way to their boat, to enjoy a relaxed time by the lake. But this young intruder probably spoiled their plans. I use the word probably because Andrzej was not a bit hesitant when he invited the youngman to sail with them. He did not even take consent or discuss this with his wife before asking the youngman to join them and make him a party to their private moments.
Now, what is it with men that they do anything to seek a woman’s attention and/or to display their oneupmanship over the other! Yes, the same old pseudo-machismo came into play where Andrzej showed off his sailing experience and know-how and commanded the youngman to do all kinds of jobs with the sail, mast and tying-untying knots. But the youngman was not a bit embarassed about these trivialities, instead he showed his skills with his small penknife when he ran it between the fingers of his outstretched palms. Yes, that requires some talent and lot of guts too. So, while both men were occupied in their ego clash, Krystyna was busy cavorting in a two piece bikini, preparing soup and sunbathing in the boat. All this right infront of the youngman, without even doubting his nature or intention.
By the time the movie reached the half-way mark, I was still as confused then as I was when the movie began; never really understanding what the movie was about. There had to be a twist to the tale or some unforseen incident which would make the movie a little more interesting. But nothing was happening, the 3 of them had supper and drinks, played a few silly games and then hit the sack after setting an alarm for 5am as Andrzej had a meeting to attend at 9am, the next day.
Krystyna woke up much before the alarm went off, and to her surprise the youngman was already up. They were chatting when Andrzej opened his eyes and found his wife and the youngman to be out of his sight. He pocketed the youngman’s knife and then climbed to the deck. He was quite relieved to find the youngman on top of the mast and his wife sitting by the deck. There was a minor altercation between the two in which, first his knife went down the lake and then he did. But alas! he knew no swimming, or so he had confided earlier. The couple took chances to dive into the lake to find the youngman, but they couldn’t. They got back to the deck. Krystyna accused Andrzej of provoking the youngman and she even belittled his cheap antics which were just meant to scare the guy and boost his own ego. Being unable to take this insult, Andrzej made another attempt in a bid to find the youngman.
Does the youngman drown? If he does, would Andrzej forgive himself? Will Krystyna forgive him for the silly duel and will Andrzej forgive her if he gets to know that she cheated on him. How the movie ends is for you to find out, all I can say is that the couple return much wiser and with better understanding of each oher. While Andrzej is guilt-ridden with the thought of having killed the youngman, Krystyna is guilt-ridden with the thought of having having shared passionate moments with the youngman. How they face each other and handle life from here onwards, is the last and defining moment of the movie.
KITW was the first full length movie of Polanski. Shot in black and white, the movie captures the minute details of sailing and boats very well. Although the setup is a lake, we never really feel the absence of the blue waters mainly because the screenplay is so engaging. The tension between the 3 people on board is pretty palpable, and the ego clash is well handled. The movie was brilliantly shot and the jazz music makes for fantastic background score. This movie, made in 1962, was the first Polish movie to receive Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language movie. A special mention should be made of the performances of the 3 main leads, who showed a lot of restraint.
Moving on, lets talk about a movie which has a schizophrenic woman who irons her clothes with the power chord not plugged-in; who cuts off the telephone wires of the apartment, who cleans the blood spots on the floors while humming a song; who looks into the door’s peep-hole and refuses to open the door out of fear. Much as this sounds like RGV’s Kaun, it was a movie that came 30 years before Kaun. The movie I am talking about is Repulsion which was made in 1965 and was definitely one of the many inspirations for Kaun.
Repulsion came at a time when soft romantic movies ruled the BO and nobody would have thought of such paranoid movie theme of a woman who is a misandrist and at the same time she has fantasies of rape and sexual assault. Catherine Deneuve who played the character of Carol who tries her hardest to refuse a handsome guy for a date so she can join her sister for dinner. Carol lives in an apartment with her sister and boyfriend of her sister. She is repulsed by men and her sister’s boyfriend falls into the same category. Although she fears the company of men, she gets turned on by seeing her sister’s undone bed. Although she abhors the orgasmic noises coming from her sister’s room, she hallucinates sexual assaults.
She works in a parlour and is extremely beautiful and desirable. Men want to date her, but she is always lost in her own world of paranoia. She has weird imaginations about the cracks in the walls widening. And all hell breaks loose when her sister goes off on a trip with her boyfriend and she is left alone in the apartment.
Too many noises in her head and too much fantasy thoughts keep her occupied. So much so that she ends up cutting off her client’s skin along with the nails and gets fired from the job. She returns to her apartment and suddenly the cracks on the wall start seeming huge, hands start creeping out the sidewalls and she gets chased down in her dreams. Carol’s mental disintegration is symbolically shown by the rotting of rabbit meat which lies near the kitchen sink. Her sister was supposed to prepare the meat for a fine dinner, but that never happened. Instead, the meat decays and attracts flies just as Carol sinks into her own mental putrification.
Carol turns totally silent and stops emoting. When the landlord comes home to collect the rent, he is charmed by her beauty and tries to take advantage of her loneliness and vulnerability. She gives him the treatment he deserved and something more, a death certificate. The movie is filled with scenes which seem way ahead of times, a character which may seem tame now [in the light of Hostel, Irreversible etc] but back then in 1965 it must have evoked a lot of shock. The bleakness behind the beauty of Catherine was superbly done. The fear factor and the anxiety of the unknown, the lethal actions of an innocent looking face was incredible.
So, what actually happens of Carol? How does her sister react when she returns home? Does she be greeted home at all? Watch the movie to know it. Although its shot in b&w, blood never ever looked so red! Even with all the technology and special effects, we cannot scare the audience the way this movie does. Reason being that, the movie plays in your mind and not on the screen. It does not merely scare you, but horrifies you.
This movie was the first English movie that Polanski directed. Language was never a barrier to him, his camera did the talking. Be it KITW in Polish or Repulsion in English, his touch is evident in every frame. His attention to detail and the innovative characterisation still remains as a reference for every director. Be it the emotional strain between the 3 people in the boat or a single woman in an apartment, the camera captures it all very well. His direction was top-notch and even his black and white movies have a lot of grey. One of the best directors, ever, Polanski is extraordinary in story telling and distinctive behind the camera. A true master of the art.
Tags: Catherine Deneuve, knife in the water, noz w wodzie, repulsion, roman polanski
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Great post on Polanski! Though I find Chinatown a little overrated for me, I love his non-American films. I like Rosemary’s baby too apart from Knife in the water but you must checkout the Tenant. Its an awesome film exploring alienation of man, I think its a part of a trilogy on this subject. Polanski plays the lead in the Tenant and has been critiqued as a bad actor in this film. The movie is splendid.I haven’t seen Repulsion. It was part of my list but I forgot about it. Should check it out. Neverthless, great post rals!
I saw repulsion half way two times. On both occassions, I found it too disturbing to proceed on. The movie was too claustrophobic and too disturbing for me. When such tormented characters are shown and shown in their entirety without any deviation in form of other characters large enough( in scope) to hold attention, it is indeed a difficult viewing, yet a sign of a bold and brave cinema. I intend to, as a fragment of audience, grow up and grasp this piece of stark movie. As far as Polanski’s other works I have seen Rose Mary’s Baby and it is rightfully a cult classic in the domain of horror. A good writeup on a deserving master!!
Nice Article, I never heard about this films before this Article, this article gave a vivid description .
Anyone in Mumbai please tell me where i can find the dvd.
@Neeraj: chinatown was a masala movie compared to these, nevertheless it had its own surprise elements and shock value in form of incest stuff etc; topics usually never spoken about freely for 1970’s. but even as u say it over-rated, it was ripped and ‘manorma-6ftUnder’ was made. thats one of the reasons why i can never appreciate M6FU
.
‘rosemary’sbaby’ and ‘tenant’ is next on my list. these two movies, alongwith ‘repulsion’ form a trilogy of ‘urban scare’; scare u in closed environs as opposed to haunted castles.
.
rgv seems really inspired by this, he kept telling how ‘bhoot’ is a more believable scary movie because of its setting in a apt.
@VPJ: i would like u to make one final attempt at watching this movie, it deserves a full watch
.
the trailer of ‘repulsion’ is so much better than most horror movies are
i’ve only seen his Pianist..n dat one was classic stuff as well….
Havent seen this either. Will surely watch it now. But, recently i saw Bitter Moon and what a fucking brilliant movie that was..superb!
I did find a lot of resemblance between Mixed Doubles and Bitter Moon..anyone thinks so?
repulsion is just awesome, will catchup on knife in the water. thanks.
@OM: ‘bitter moon’ was far ahead of ‘mixed doubles’, though the similarity is uncanny. but the sexuality that was portrayed in BM was unbelievable. i hope u saw the uncensored version. i had seen the censored version in star-movies channel in 90’s. only in 2000’s i saw the uncensored version. and there was a world of a difference between the two of them
‘death and the maiden’ is another polanski movie to checkout. its a fab watch. i plan to write on that soon, it haunts me :(
KITW didn’t work for me…pata nahi..never felt the tension between the lead pair bz of the third guy….may be shud give it a second. There is this Cantonese film (think so) Ploy which deals with this same plot. The setting is an hotel suite. A couple whose marr is on the rocks is further put to test when a young hippie woman is made to share the suite with them. It def’ly deviates from the former in the latter half but the tilt in the balance was palpable here…
@ArthiV: hmm…the idea of putting a 3rd person between a couple and observing their action/reaction is always interesting.
.
rgv’s ‘road’ had a similar premise and then it just went haywire
.
i wonder if i should put ’shabd’ in the same bracket. that premise was also good, but it went nowhere due to the non-acting of zayed and a bad screenplay :(
From your article, one thing never came out — it’s the nail-biting tension gripping the movie: the looks, the unspoken words, the minute details that gave so much more meaning to the potent silence between the three. I saw the movie recently, and I can swear that rarely have I ever seen such an awesome character study.
wish i had an appetite for such films. appreciate the well-detailed post!
@Anirban:thanx for pointing that out, really glad that you did. i did not say it in as many words, but yes, its the body language and unspoken words that gain precedence here. and even the small conversations that they have, is just dry humor. youngman tries to destress by indulging in adrenaline pumping knife jab on outstretched fingers, climbing up the mast etc. krystyna is the neutralising factor, in the way that she takes the side of the weaker person; sometimes her hubby and most of the time she speaks for the youngman. there is a latent soft-spot for the youngman
i happened to see it yesterday, coincidentally, and yes, it was quite gripping, but i think in the same genre, the best from polanski was the tenant, a failed movie very late in his career. i thought the performance was outstanding
Yet to see ‘Paani Mein Chaaku’ :-)
But ‘REPULSION’ is TERRIFIC!
I only saw it 2 months back, in the daytime, and even then I had to turn it off!
It managed to scare me!
The climax was fantastic.
It really, really stays with u.
Ditto for ‘Rosemarys Baby’.
Man, u actually go on that downward spiral with the character!
Polanski mein DEFINITELY dum hain :-)
Rosemary’s baby was the first Polanski movie I watched, followed very closely by the other two in the apartment trilogy (i guess i dont have to elaborate the effect three such movies in a row can have on you)..then chinatown,ninth gate,death and the maiden..and when my dvd deciding rights at home were threatened to be revoked,I stopped!Knife in the water,bitter moon,etc will have to wait:)
@Shikha Valsalan: hehehehe … tat was a whole lot of polanski movies, u should have gone slow on it. i m watching it in instalments so i dont get kicked out of the house
.
seriously speaking, his movies are dark and depressing. except for ‘oliver twist’ which he directed, i have not seen any other light hearted movie from polanksi. in fact, that too had some dark shades.