Polanski's 27 years old was a gloomy storm. This year, he fiddled with a few middle-aged people and a little boy a few years younger than him, and made "The Knife in the Water", an unreasonable youth film full of fables and criticism. Behind the gentle saxophone, complaining fondly about the unreliability of feelings and the unknown way out.
"Knife in the water" is a sharp tenderness. Among the character relationships constructed in the movie, this is an appropriate metaphor.
A middle-aged middle-class couple was driving to the beach for a "yacht holiday" when they met a young student who was hitchhiking. The husband agreed to take the young man on the boat for the weekend out of a weird and secret ostentation. In order to resist the wealth and class superiority of the middle-aged couple, the young man claimed to be a "hiker". On the one hand, this is a proof of identity with poetic and student spirit. The disadvantage is hidden under the label. The basis for the play of "Knife in the Water" is the tension transmitted between the balance and imbalance of power in this triangular relationship.
Black-and-white images often have excellent visual appeal in expressing the outlines of characters, the texture of the scenery or the natural scenery. Take Bergman's "Wild Strawberry" and Wim Wenders's "Under the Sky of Berlin" as examples. The composition and shading of black-and-white films are extremely exquisite, and they even secretly reveal the sexiness that color film does not possess. However, the long dull shot of the couple in the car at the beginning of the film in "Knife in the Water" deliberately dilutes this texture. The windshield reflects the endless shadows of the trees, which constantly obscures the faces of the characters. The tone of the whole film is dim and fuzzy, and it is always shrouded in gray shadows.
The middle-aged couple drove on the country road amid the brisk and alienated piano music. The roadside scenery is desolate and desolate. Even if there is still a kiss between the husband and wife, the wife's expression is like a piece of wood studded with facial features. She wears weird-shaped glasses and a sneer smile at the corner of her mouth. The film technique that Polanski plays here is very concealed. It doesn’t catch people’s eyes with the weird composition or the bloody plot, but uses multiple fixed shots to instantly capture the different indifferent expressions of the two, thus emotionally The narrative of the relationship between the two sets the stage for the foreshadowing.
The joining of young people suddenly exposes the couple's relationship to the world. At first, the husband scolded the young man with absolute despotism and dominance. Therefore, he was in a very low and weak position. He was very envious of the object of high society-the couple's car. This envy was cautious, accompanied by the stubbornness and self-esteem of the young man. . His alertness and cleverness immediately added a touch of life to the indifferent atmosphere between the couple. After they came to the water's edge, the youth offered to help transport the contents of the car to the yacht. When he really intervened in the environment where the middle-aged couple lived, the strange and rich excitement made him a little bit swayed. But he tried to stay calm—of course, occasionally showing a little deliberate disdain.
After winning the first round of the power game, the husband tried to instigate the youth to participate in the increasingly dull world of the duo between him and his wife with a calm retention, looking for a little pleasure of showing off and controlling. When the young man was called back to the yacht by the man, an uneasy romantic and leisurely melody sounded, heralding the official opening of the story. "I know you will call me, I know what you are thinking, and you want to play." The
composition of the first two scenes is very simple, placing the characters in the frame with almost no background setting. Even after reaching the water's edge, there was no extra arrangement except for a few poles erected in the water and a few docked boats. The water was empty and silent, only water birds flew by.
The first conflict between the young man and her husband occurred shortly after the appearance of "Sword in the Water". The husband warned the young man to be careful when carrying a knife, and then wanted to illustrate this with a personal experience, but the young man yawned and showed his negligence for the first time. The husband’s supremacy in the relationship between the three people was immediately challenged. He immediately showed irritation and dissatisfaction. He ordered the youth to "kick up the sails" and refused to teach the youth to tie knots to ensure absolute control. After the youth expressed dissatisfaction with the tone of his command, he still made a good compromise, took the initiative to bring up new topics, and talked about the military side by side.
The second head-on conflict between the two was still provoked by the youth on the surface. He solemnly protested to the man, "I am a hiker, not a pier coolie." The man replied unceremoniously, "You are a coward." As an outsider in the conflict between the two, the wife suddenly came out to compromise with the youth. She sheltered the youth in front of her husband, but aroused the youth's enthusiasm. In front of a woman, regardless of age, the struggle between men will appear particularly sharp. In the end, the youth's protest seemed arrogant and mischievous, but ended in fruitless.
Roman Polanski has a special preference for the construction of the meaning of the composition, and he is often keen on using the few elements in the picture to express interesting and profound connotations. For example, in a few single shots, shooting from the top of the deck, without leaving room, portrays the different viewpoints and attitudes of the three people.
A hormonal young man climbed to the top of the mast under the gaze of a woman. He stood on a safe vantage point and blatantly challenged the man at his feet. In the film, the initial relationship between the wife and the husband is "correspondence", which is a subsidiary controlled relationship. Since the youth's intervention, she began to move in the other direction of this relationship, she began to oppose him in an elegant way, favoring his opposite. She put the youth under her wings like a mother protecting her children, even after the youth overturned the soup because of recklessness and stubbornness, she still gave him a share of her share.
Regarding the trivial and mediocre life of the middle-aged couple, the youth unabashedly ridiculed and ridiculed them. And this is the most vulnerable soft spot for middle-aged people, and the couple finally stood side by side again, resisting this kind of "young" infringement.
The passion of the youth created the first climax in one third of the film-he resolutely threw the oar into the water. This time it’s true. The audience thought, the contradiction between them seems to have escalated. In the next few minutes, someone might be thrown into the water...In the middle of this barren water, any provocations and fights are more than on land. Dramatic, when the power of the three parties fails to reach a balance, it will create a crisis that can overwhelm everyone.
If young is like that switchblade, it is a vain threat to men in a middle-aged crisis. Youths once again use games to contend against the strength of men.
Blindly confrontation is boring. The film set a "public crisis" in the middle of the film: stranded. Since then, the relationship between the three of them has tended to stabilize, and the youth actively participated in it, and no longer self-isolated and isolated. They entered the cabin to escape the heavy rain. For the first time, the young man spied the woman's bare back, and the sexual tension between him and her began to be clearly shown in front of the screen. A soft flat sandal and a sad and lingering love song are a fatal temptation for young people. This bit of longing disturbed his heart, and he hesitated to approach this beautiful mature woman, of course not so presumptuous. In showing their chemical reactions with each other, the black and white film embodies its unique and unparalleled picture quality: a woman sitting on the deck smoking a cigarette, slender legs, those flat shoes, the young man walking by her barefoot...this It is a fascinating message that only movies can reveal.
Couples who have lived together for many years are so familiar with each other's breath that men can quickly perceive the slight emotional shock. When we saw his skeptical and voyeuristic expression on the half of his face blocked by the deck, we couldn't help but marvel at the silent insights that can be seen everywhere in the film. Although there is no evidence, the young man has clearly become his imaginary enemy. He arrogantly instructs the young man to exchange all his wife's attention and obedience through this tyranny, but this will make him more passive. At this time, the second climax of the film appeared. The man threw the young man's cherished knife into the water, triggering a long-standing war between the two. The man tried to irritate the young man to soothe his jealousy, and pushed the young man into the water. This ignited his wife's dissatisfaction and hatred for him. "Do you know what you are? A pretentious liar, you just want to show off in front of a child!" The couple slandered each other and accused each other with fierce words. The man went into the water to find the youth, and he was hiding behind the buoy, watching the changes. He swam back to the yacht, and the opportunity for the two to live alone was exactly what the audience expected. He heard her crying, so he climbed into the boat in hesitation. The woman slapped him twice because of his lies, and then immediately went to the boat to call for her husband, but no man appeared on the surface of the water. Then there was an admonishing dialogue between the wife and the young man. She touched his fragile self-esteem, and reached the third climax of the film: the boy took off his armor during this gentle torture. He needs to kiss her to prove that he is also a man capable of kissing her. Under the tension of sex, women often can only catch them with their hands. Moreover, she also has a good impression of this young man's recklessness and shyness. Her desire for him is not less than that of him.
This is a "completion of betrayal". The most extreme possible relationship between them is realized, and staying there seems to be meaningless. After looking back a few times, the young man left, his wife returned to the shore, and the husband was waiting for her. Everything went back to the starting point, it's just that the two people sitting in the same position were in a mixed mood. The wife expressed regret in her calm expression, and the husband used the story to admit that he was "too confident". The car stopped at the intersection, an allegorical picture as the end of the film.
The beauty of "Sword in the Water" is that it always triggers sharp conflicts within a very limited space, and then uses restraint and calmness to deal with this complex and subtle relationship changes and power struggles. In the three-person pairwise relationship group, confrontation is the most basic point of drama, and then based on this explosive power source, it is again given ambiguous and chaotic. The instability of the relationship between wife and husband is a good example. At the moment of their slight confrontation, they were mixed with the affection of the past and the tenderness of the past. The comparison between men and youth in terms of age can also mirror the proposition of "confrontation". "Desire" corresponds to the ambiguity attached to the surface conflict. In this ambiguity, the interpretation of the present and future relationships between the characters will be extended to the greatest extent, and the psychological depiction of this multiple interpretation through the assembly of lens language, more highlights the capacity of a movie. The fascinating aspect of successful dramas lies in the maximum exploration and discussion of the relationship between people and things, people and things, and people and the world.
View more about Knife in the Water reviews
