The Tenant (1976)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Good start, but then it gets ruined

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

You know that sinking feeling of dread you experience in nightmare before you realise it was all a dream? Until then, everything is very real, and truly horrid.Well, prepare to enter that nightmare state of mind. You will never escape, no matter how many times you tell yourself it isn't real.The nightmare will follow its own logic and torture you with its inventive and hurtful twists and turns, much like the protagonist whose fate is not only inescapable, it is inflicted with almost sadistic delight, a sort of death by a thousand cuts.I can't put words on the existential angst this masterpiece has provoked in me.I thought I'd seen everything, and I've read Kafka.This is several levels above. I can't stop listening to the haunting soundtrack which is like an anchor - every time I play it, I'm drawn back into the nightmare.

The Tenant is one of the finest psychological Drama film among other Polanski's work's. Just like Chinatown(1974) in this film much emphasis given to the protagonist so that the audience would follow the delusion journey of the character(Polanski himself) since he witness the screaming of the woman at the hospital till his own demise. The main reason I love about Psychological themed movies is they are so realistic and compelling that they convince us we might face this situation in a walking life. In terms of this film Trelkovsky felt paranoid after he discover tooth in the wall hole, despite his concern for it he avoid to tell the truth to the landlord. Instead he chooses to figure out by himself. This type of story telling is also the essence of thrillers.

'The Tenant' is the final film in Roman Polanski's unofficial trilogy of films about apartment dwellers gradually succumbing to their paranoia. Like Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, it is about the protagonist's own perception of what's being "done to him" and exists only in the darkest recesses of his own mind.It tells the story of the strange series of occupations that take place when Mr. Trelkovsky (a fabulously understated Polanski himself), a filing clerk in a library, moves into a two-room Paris apartment made vacant by the attempted suicide of the previous tenant. Small boned and physically vulnerable, he seems to be aware of having put off people all his life. Thus he goes to great lengths to avoid offending his neighbors.Little by little, Trelkovsky comes to suspect that the other tenants in the building have somehow been responsible for the earlier tenant's suicide attempt. He suffers persecution from apparently everyone in sight. The concierge and his landlord monitor his arrivals and departures. A housewarming party for his bullying colleagues excites complaints about his alleged boisterousness. He nearly lands a gorgeous girl but shrinks away when he suspects she's in on the conspiracy. A mysterious woman appears at his door with her crippled daughter to report that there's a conspiracy afoot to have her kicked out of the building. A busybody turns against him when he refuses to sign a petition to evict the woman but this lone heroic stand means that when the persecuted woman takes a dump on every other tenant's doormat, he has to scoop up some excrement and put it outside his own flat so he won't be blamed. But he answers all the unaccountable rudeness with infinite patience. One morning when he wakes up in full drag, missing the tooth that the dead girl was missing, he is finally convinced that his tenants are engaged in a conspiracy to drive him to suicide by forcing him to take on the personality of the dead woman. All this leads to a scandalous double climax that is still among the most despairing in cinema.'The Tenant' works so well is because it isn't so much a psychological portrait of grief as it is an unnerving acknowledgement of the ambiguous nature of the world. It displays Polanski's clear-eyed narrative discipline, with a creepiness that seeps right into your bones and never lets up. His nightmare vision of the apartment building as an almost living and completely malevolent entity remains unmatched by anyone in its astonishing hallucinatory horrors. Via seemingly simple albeit absurd exchanges, with flashes of black humor, he brilliantly evokes an evil society's almost supernatural ability to recognize weakness in others and to punish all that is good.The Tenant is a chilling exercise in urban paranoia and mental disintegration that overwhelmingly solipsistic and ultimately alienating.

Entire movie is nerve-racking experience. Not exactly frightening but unsettling and leaving us disturbed.Every time I watch this movie, it makes me think from different angle.I read some where that it was Roman Polanski's experiment and he did not liked it much. Still I rate this movie more than his other classic work like Rosemary's baby and Repulsion which are also dealing with loneliness and psychological issues.This film would have been incomplete without Sven Nykvist. This was the first time Sven working with Polanski and he nailed it. This is one the best photography and camera work by him. Use of Jimmy Jib in opening credit scene is astounding and notable. It's single uncut shot where camera moves slowly showing every window in apartment and finally tenant entering as if birth of human being, soul(Tenant) entering in body(Apartment). Marvelous job. Unlike Sven's earlier work with Ingmar Bergman where he has used extreme closeup and bright colors to lit up the actors, here in Tenant he kept the tone dark and shot the sequences in low light, still manages to show every single visual detail of the background which was extremely necessary to create necessary atmosphere.Regarding screenplay - Though I have yet to read original novel but watching movie, I feel Polanski and Gerard's screenplay must have justified the Roland's novel. Original story is ambiguous and so does the movie script. Every time we watch, we can change our conclusion. It's unclear and confusing. Entire premise of Apartment and tenant is symbolic representation of Body and Soul. Movie mainly deals with Protagonist's paranoia. How his loneliness and weak mind absorb his identity and transform him to psychologically disturbed person. Location plays vital role in his loneliness. And who else knows better than Polanski how to use location and camera.All actors have played their part very well. It was Polanski's smart move to chose himself as the main character. His face and physical stature fits the role perfectly.Only single scene which I am yet to understand is Slap of kid ??? May be that shows how much he is disturbed.If you really like movies dealing with mind game / psychological issues, then along with Repulsion and Rosemary's baby this one is for you.