Polański debut movie digitally remastered

The film was heavily criticised by the communist authorities when it came out, but having won prizes at festivals around Europe set Polański off on a career in the UK, France and later the US.

The film’s premier in Warsaw in March 1962 was accused of “cosmopolitanism, and not fitting into the style of the Polish School" and "glorifying the consumer lifestyle,” by one critic at the time.

The first secretary of the communist (“united workers”) party Władysław Gomułka condemned the movie as “an unrealistic, and pessimistic picture of society” and the 29-year old Polański of being “driven by Western examples.”

The digital reconstruction was undertaken by DI Factory and Re Kino, with the audio reconstruction by Sound Place. Artistic supervision was under Halina Paszkowska and Paweł Edelman, and technical supervision by Michał Wielgosz and Łukasz Rutkowski. The Digital Film Repository (CRF) will store the digitally remastered version.

The remastering is the latest in a line of Polish films that have received the same treatment. "The Saragossa Manuscript" by Wojciech Jerzy Has and "Man of steel" by Andrzej Wajda, among others.

"Knife in the Water" was co-written and directed by Polański, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1963.

The story revolves around a triangular relationship between Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk), Krystyna (Jolanta Umecka) and a young man they pick up (Zygmunt Malanowicz) hitch-hiking.

Krzysztof Komeda composed the film's music and the saxophonist was Bernt Rosengren. (jh)