Film Review: The Tenant (1976)
Even before having to escape Hollywood because of rape and criminal conviction, Roman Polanski has laying the groundwork to continue his career at the Old Continent. First step in that process was The Tenant, 1976 French horror drama that would often be considered as his most personal, but also the most misunderstood film.
The film is based on Le Locataire chimérique, 1964 novel by Roland Topol, French author known for his work in avant-garde literature, theatre and cinema. Protagonist, played by Polanski, is Trelkovsky, a Polish émigré living in Paris and working as a clerk. In a search of proper accommodation, he learns about building where one of the apartments could soon become empty. Egyptologist Simone Schoule, its tenant, has recently thrown herself out of the window and is likely to die of her injuries, thus allowing Trelkovsky to rent it. Before that happens he begins visiting bandaged Schoule in hospital and also meets her friend Stella (played by Isabelle Adjani), a beautiful woman with whom he would start tentative romantic relationship. Following Schoule’s death, he moves into an apartment but soon begins noticing strange and disturbing details about his neighbours who appear to chastise him over minor inconveniences like loud music or throwing party for his friends. He gradually begins believing that his neighbours are conspiring against him and that they want him to suffer the same fate as Schoule, whom he begins to mimic by smoking her brand of cigarettes, wearing make up and women’s clothes and ultimately having disturbing visions.
The Tenant is often considered to be the final part of Polanski’s “Apartments Trilogy” – three very different films with plots set in apartments and nominally belong to horror genre (the other two are Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby). This film is often considered the worst of the three or, at least it was deemed as such at the time of its premiere, when it was deemed disappointing by most critics. This can be explained with Polanski using the script he had co-written with his old associate Gérard Brach as an opportunity to exercise some of his very personal demons – childhood traumas of a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Poland and the tragic loss of wife Sharon Tate at the hands of Manson family in 1969. Polanski apparently became quite paranoid as a result and this affected characterisation of the protagonist. Trelkovsky, who is, like Polanski himself, Polish immigrant living in France, is often met by derision and suspicion by native French and reacts by seeing suspicion and malevolence everywhere. This gradually leads to his loss of sanity and, ultimately, identity manifesting in shocking ending. The concept could have worked, but Polanski at times becomes too enamoured with his acting ability and dark humour at times make The Tenant look like parody of itself. Polanski also fails to have proper chemistry with Isabelle Adjani, who is wasted in the scene where she takes her character to watch Bruce Lee’s kung fu films in cinema, a detail that is quite unnecessary for the plot itself, but that might appeal to some of the viewers nostalgic towards 1970s. Through the years The Tenant became popular subject of scholarly works trying to explain it through exploring themes of anti-Semitism, immigrant experience or issues of sexual identity and it received something of a cult status among fans of Polanski’s work. Polanski would, however, have to wait for 1990s before reaching new career highs.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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