The architect of confinement. Roman Polański is one of the most technically accomplished and personally haunted directors in the history of cinema. Born in Paris, raised in Kraków, and shaped irrevocably by the horrors of the Second World War — his mother died in Auschwitz, and he survived the Kraków ghetto as a child — Polański has spent a career active since 1955 making films in which safety is always provisional and the world outside is never entirely trustworthy. His work ranges from lean, claustrophobic chamber pieces to sprawling historical epics, but a consistent preoccupation runs through all of it: the way ordinary life can be invaded, distorted, and destroyed by forces that arrive without warning.
A story so easily interpreted and beautiful that it becomes personal. Polański finds a remarkable balance between the horror of occupation and the delicate beauty of music — and proves that the best scenarios are written by life.
Raw, stripped of every unnecessary part, and never boring for a single one of its 94 minutes. Three characters, one boat, one day — and a tension that builds through silence and glances rather than spectacle.