Male Extreme
Roman Polanski knows himself. In his 1962 film Knife in the Water, he dives deep into the male psyche. The setup: a married couple, the glory of whose romance is long gone substituted by petty bickering and mutual boredom, come across a hitchhiker eager to test his limits. He stops cars by standing in the middle of the road and refusing to budge.
The husband and the hitchhiker are of the same ilk, barely 20 years apart. They enter a dynamic of power play and intense competition… , challenging each other while the brief acquaintance extends over a 24 hr sailing trip. The female role is most diminutive while the fascination of the two men borders on the homo erotic. Constant handling of a knife raises the tension which is only occasionally interrupted by carefree moments of laughter, play and fooling around. The young man’s sexual interest in the wife becomes soon apparent as personal space is scarce, bathing suits wet and change of clothes often required. The husband’s suspicion is aroused as he wakes from sleep and discovers that both are gone from the cabin. Even though the two are found engaged in fixing a sail before the morning departure, the husband’s temper is spoilt. The hitchhiker is thrown outboard in a fight. In the same continuos spirit of challenge and competition the young man hides behind a buoy while the couple keeps diving to find him, setting up the mood for a scene where a possible murder took place. Further confrontation and bipartisan loathing is intensified between the man and his wife. The husband swims away to the shore, while she remains behind and some time later hauls the boat back to the dock. Back in the car, she questions her husband whether he intends to turn himself in, to the police. He emotionally accepts the reality of having killed a man and takes the route towards a police station, the wife confesses that the young man in fact hasn’t drowned and that they had a sexual encounter before sailing in. The car is stopped at a crossroad. The husband must decide which to believe - that he has killed a man, or that the youngster has deceived him and his wife has betrayed him. The car remains at the intersection as the film ends - beautifully.