Knife In The Water

aka Noz w wodzie Poland 1962, d Roman Polanski

Andrzej Wajda described his former protégé's debut feature as "the beginning of the new Polish cinema". Co-written by Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski (who would become a distinguished director in his own right), it presented various psychological and sexual power games between successful journalist Andrzej (complete with yacht and flash car, though not the Mercedes that Polanski originally envisaged), his wife Christine and a student hitch-hiker they pick up en route to the lakeside.

A bullying control freak, Andrzej invites him aboard the yacht with the aim of demonstrating his physical and social superiority, only to find the tables turned on him in a fashion that he finds himself quite unable to deal with. Although never overtly political, this was the kind of subversive message that ran quite counter to the Polish film industry's dominant Marxist ideology.

As a result, the film would be one of two (the other by Wajda) attacked by Communist Party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka in a speech at a high-profile party conference. Polanski was delighted by this, and equally happy when the film lost to Fellini's 8½ after being nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar: merely being cited alongside such giants was praise enough.