Review of The Tenant (1976) by Hanna-Maria S — 18 Apr 2010

Can't say I understand much of the critiscm in regards to this film Roger Ebert's basic complaint was it was predictible but we'll get into that later though in the grand scheme of things never attained the collective acclaim of Roman's other films in his unofficial apartment trilogy (with Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby) which it bears resemblance to especially the latter in which both start with new tenants in an apartment buillding with a former having comitted suicide.

The sequence of events is simple and for most of film is grounded in reality seemingly very close to home. Polanski himself in the lead role plays Trelkovsky the new Tenant who cant seem to avoid upsetting his fellow tenants every time makes a move, its in this regard that the film hold up so well is how Polanski can push those akward moments that a merely uncomfortable to the point of being almost horrific. As the film progresses that horror compounds till Trelkovsky seems to be a full blown case of paranioa.

Ebert's complaint was that it was too evident that Trelkovsky was paranoid and that it was evident his neighboors were not out to get him. It's not so much that I disagree with Ebert that I think his paranioa is really not what the film is about. Like Rosemary's Baby being a film marketed as satanic thriller but film would step outside of the conventions it was associated with and come to tell a story of deception and perversion. Likewise the Tenant on the surface will strike most a huanted house story, it extends far beyond that giving a bleak view of what seems to be the entire against Trelkovsky. Polanski having survived the Holocaust and at this point was almost certainly still morning Sharon Tate's death makes it easy to understand his decsion to cast himself in the lead (and oddly enough Polanski rarely discusses the film).

More than paranioa the film feels like a reflection on grief and vulnerablity as well as passivness and its weakness in the context of scoiety.Trelkovsky is a man almost constantly exploited without ever seeming to stand up for himself and as result is a film examining how easy it is to be broken down down in the modern world(which really could reflect the whole trilogy, which is why the aparments a nessary aspect in their reflection to modern world as opposed to traditional haunted houses).