The Tenant (1976)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I wanted to love The Tenant. I truly did. It's one of those films you hear about whenever classic horror films are being discussed. But I feel like I watched a different movie than everyone else.The first half of the movie is very slow and somewhat boring, which would be worth it if the second half paid off. At first, it seems like it will. When the movie hit the halfway point it started getting exciting. It was like, "Yes! This is what I've been waiting for!" I mean, you have teeth in the wall, a head being tossed around like a football, creepy tenants standing completely motionless in the window across from Trelkovsky's apartment. Trelkovsky begins acting strange and unlike himself. Polanski' acting became better (although I feel someone else could've been a better fit for the role). And then I don't know what happened. The rest of the ending fizzles out and you're left with a detachment from the character's situation. Suddenly it all becomes so absurd. I can appreciate the paranoia of our MC, even if it's all in his head, but in my opinion it was executed so poorly. The sound editing was not very good either. At times sound effects were so ear-piercing I had to lower the volume, yet other times the voices were so low or spoken strangely that I had to turn on subtitles just to know what was being said. The dubbing is so distracting in this movie. Just like in Suspiria, the dubbing is awful and it creates a disconnect from the story. Suddenly you're pulled back to reality; these are just actors, badly delivering their lines while another voice is not matching AT ALL. I will never understand this style of filmmaking. It comes across as lazy.I went into this movie thinking it was a psychological horror film, but On IMDb it is tagged as a black comedy. Was this a black comedy when it was released? Or do people think it's a black comedy because of how poorly it's done? Who knows.I honestly believe that if this had been a film by anyone other than Polanski it would not be considered such a masterpiece. I think this is one of his worst films.

The steady progress of an inoffensive man's descent into madness provides this psychological thriller with its intriguing plot. Even more fascinating though, are some of the questions it raises about the nature of reality, the notion of what actually constitutes "the self" and some possible theories about the roots of insanity. Based on Roland Topor's 1964 novel "Le Locataire Chimerique", "The Tenant" is unsettling, creepy and tragic as it depicts the events that lead to its protagonist losing both his identity and his sanity before providing the movie with its shocking climax.Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski) is the polite office clerk who rents a modest apartment in a residential building in Paris and immediately encounters unpleasantness from its irritable concierge (Shelley Winters) and Monsieur Zy (Melvyn Douglas) who's the building's grumpy old landlord. Zy emphasises the importance of not making any noise and ensuring that nothing's done which could disturb the building's other residents. Unfortunately, a home-warming get-together that Trelkovsky has in his apartment with a group of his office colleagues attracts complaints from his neighbours and leads to Zy threatening his new tenant with eviction if there are any similar problems in the future.Trelkovsky learns that the apartment's previous tenant, Simone Choule (Dominique Poulange) had attempted suicide by jumping out of the apartment window and had been injured so badly that it was certain that she would never be able to return. Intrigued by this, Trelkovsky visits Simone in hospital where he finds her heavily bandaged and also meets her friend Stella (Isabelle Adjani). Shockingly, when Simone sees her visitors, she's unable to communicate with them and merely lets out a long, loud and very distressing scream.During the weeks that follow, Trelkovsky continues to be treated unfairly by his neighbours who consistently complain about the noise he makes. The sheer injustice of what happens makes him increasingly withdrawn and simultaneously, following Simone's death, he becomes obsessed with what happened to her and gradually finds himself adopting some of her behaviours (like changing to her brand of cigarettes and switching from coffee to drinking chocolate). As his obsession deepens, he even starts dressing in her clothes and then, recognising that he's losing his own identity, becomes convinced that his neighbours are conspiring against him to make him take on Simone's identity and like her, commit suicide. Further distressing events then follow as Trelkovsky decides what action to take to escape the treatment he's had to endure from his intolerant neighbours.Impressively, the way in which Trelkovsky's experiences are depicted on-screen enables the audience to feel the same level of injustice that he feels and to share in his confusion as he loses his sanity because it's not always clear what's real and what's imagined. Similarly, the distress that he feels during his unstoppable change of identity is conveyed very powerfully as he struggles to comprehend the café owner's role in this and also reflects on how much of himself he can give up before his identity is completely lost. The conventional view of what happened to him would be to assume that his breakdown was the result of a pre-existing condition, however, what takes place in the movie's final scene suggests at least two other possible explanations.Roman Polanski conveys his character's diffidence very convincingly and his physical appearance makes him a perfect choice for the part. Isabelle Adjani, Shelley Winters and Melvyn Douglas are also superb in their important roles and contribute strongly to the success of this extremely memorable movie.

"WTF!?" - And, I'll say it again - "WTF!!??" 1976's "The Tenant" was one of those screwy films that had me asking myself, over and over again - "When is this damn movie going to get interesting?" (And, it never did get even close to being interesting - So, I guess, that answered my question very clearly) When it comes to the likes of psychological thrillers (which "The Tenant" was supposed to be) - They couldn't possibly get anymore drab and dull than this total mealy-mouthed snore-fest.If you ask me - I think that after director Roman Polanski struck a huge success with 1974's "Chinatown", he was so bloody arrogant about his film-making abilities that he believed his audience would instantly like anything he churned out and, as a result, he produced this total turd to test the blind loyalty of his adoring fans.And, finally - On top of Polanski being a less-than-interesting actor, he certainly couldn't be taken seriously in drag. In fact, he was so utterly terrible in wig, eyeliner and heels, that he wasn't even worth laughing at.

'The Tenant' is a thriller directed by Roman Polanski which came out in 1976 and it is the 3rd and final film in his unofficial 'Apartments Trilogy'. A man named Trelkovsky moves into a new apartment in which the previous resident had committed suicide. He constantly gets told off by the owner and other neighbours for being too noisy. These constant restrictions and a sense of alienation and guilt breaks him and leads him to a state of manic paranoia.Let me just start this review by saying that this film just didn't work for me. I felt extremely disengaged and never did I ever find myself caring for the protagonist and believing his plight. There are many reasons for this. Let's discuss them one by one : 1. The script and the screenplay is very poorly written. The first 2 films in the 'Apartment Trilogy' namely 'Repulsion' and 'Rosemary's Baby' work brilliantly because the scripts in those films are far more craftily written where you find yourself caring for the characters. There are very rich subtexts to the paranoia suffered by the characters like sexual abuse/repression, social change and religion, etc. Many people will say there are themes at work in 'The Tenant' too like isolation, guilt, self-identity,etc. But I just didn't find myself interested at all due to the lack of believable aspects of the storyline. I haven't read the original novel that it is based on, but the storyline in the film didn't seem convincing at all. There is a relationship that builds between the protagonist Trelkovsky and a female character in the film which felt very awkward. The whole paranoia aspect which was so spectacularly done by Polanski in 'Repulsion' and 'Rosemary's Baby', just falls flat here and almost laughably so. The build to the ultimate payoff of the last 30 minutes is extremely underdeveloped and unconvincing and the movie failed to make me buy the fact that someone could actually get engulfed by paranoia and go mad for the reasons that are shown here. It all happens in a very sudden and rushed way. The climactic set piece is also very dumb.2. Roman Polanski is a great director, but acting is not his cup of tea. He completely fails to properly and convincingly portray this character Trelkovsky. He just doesn't have an on-screen presence and the subtlety to pull off a character who is slipping into a state of madness. The performances from the other actors also aren't anything remarkable.3. The sound mixing for this film is terrible. This film was shot in many different languages and in some of the scenes the overdubbing in English is extremely jarring and I was put off by the grotesque quality of the dubbing.There are a few set-pieces that work and which are actually creepy and the camera work in certain scenes is good, but apart from that I have nothing positive to say about this film.'The Tenant' is one of my least favourite Roman Polanski films. The paranoia and the descent into madness of the protagonist is not convincing at all. The characters are all very uninteresting. The themes don't have any impact on the viewer due to the sloppy nature in which they are treated in the screenplay. This was a hugely disappointing way to cap off the 'Apartment Trilogy'.