Roman Polanski is at his best as a filmmaker when he focuses on the realist and small moments of horror in a human life. When he goes a bit overboard, and into the grotesque or surreal, such as in The Fearless Vampire Killers, or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck, Rosemary’s Baby, or Chinatown, his films tend to lose their way, even if still good.

When his focus remains tightly on the real, such as in Repulsion or The Pianist, his films are amongst the best on screen. His very first feature film, 1962’s Knife In The Water (Nóz W Wodzie), is more in line with the latter films, and as such, is one of the best debut films in cinema history. It was even a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1963 Academy Awards, where it lost to Federico Fellini’s 8½.

Filmed in black and white, not long after Polanski finished film school, the 94 minute film features only three characters. Not a single other actor, not even an extra. It is a taut psychological exploration of masculinity and testosterone. Yet, despite that, it’s a stretch to term the film a "thriller," as many critics have. There is very little action in the film, at least in a material sense.

The real crux of the film revolves about the mental games that the two male characters play with each other, to impress the lone female in their group. In a sense, the film has much in common with many of the American television dramas of the 1950s, even though it was filmed on a real lake.

The film opens with a married couple driving in the countryside, early one Sunday morning. They are headed to their boat on the lake. He is a forty-something, dark-haired sportswriter and avid sailor, named Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk). His brunet wife, Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka), is a bit younger, nearing thirty, and at first seems a bit chunky and nebbishy, as she wears cat-like granny glasses.

As the film progresses, she will appear more and more svelte and sexy, and it is this subtle evolution which seems to kick the two males into overdrive. The third character is a blond hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz), in his early twenties, whose name is never revealed. Andrzej nearly runs him down on the road, then offers him a ride, seemingly to show off his prowess in front of his wife. He rides with them to the deserted marina and is about to take off, when Andrzej offers to let him come on the trip on their sailboat, the Christine. After first declining, the young man accepts, stating he knew Andrzej would ask. This is his first upping of the ante, as he lets it be known that he is no naïf. Krystyna merely watches the two men tangle, early on.