My thoughts about movies and TV shows I've been watching

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Monday, March 28, 2011

One of the greatest films - and no doubt for less than $100k

Roman Polanski's (first?) movie, "Knife in the Water," from 1962 I think, is just as great and powerful and impressive today as it must have been 40 years ago - so clean and simple in its plot, structure, and elements - just three characters, beautiful clean b/w photography, cool jazz background from time to time but mostly just the ambient sounds, takes place in a classically defined 24 hours, most of it on board a small sailing yacht, the Christine - you'd think it's impossible to get so much variety and so much interesting footage in such confines, but Polanski does an amazing job with very limited resources - film couldn't have cost for than $100k to make. Three character - a couple, Andrez 40ish and rakish, the skipper of the boat and bossy and aggressive, his beautiful 20ish wife, Krystina, competent and somewhat demure, and a 20ish hitchhiker they pick up, unnamed, whom they invite to join them for a day and night of sailing - the men immediately begin fighting for dominance, there's danger and aggression in every frame, the hitchhiker carries the knife of the title, which is always a menace, and turns out to be the catalyst for the final conflict but not exactly in the way you'd think. The ending is totally provocative and disturbing - won't give anything away here, you ought to see it or re-see it. Polanski's career has been enormous and I think perhaps unappreciated because of the troubles he's had with the law - and of course the tragedy in his life must have hindered his talent in some ways - but I think a retrospective on his work would show him to be one of the giants.

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