THE TENANT
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Roland Topor, Gerard Brach, Roman Polanski
Starring Roman Polanski, Melvyn Douglas, Isabelle Adjani, Shelley Winters
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Roland Topor, Gerard Brach, Roman Polanski
Starring Roman Polanski, Melvyn Douglas, Isabelle Adjani, Shelley Winters
Roman Polanski directed, wrote and/or starred in some of the most enjoyable films of the last sixty years, including Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Tess, Frantic, The Ninth Gate, The Pianist, and The Ghost Writer. Apartment life, demonology and stress are among his recurring themes. Often his films stand out for their playfulness, in the sense that a big toe on a small foot is playful. In his 1976 movie The Tenant, his playfulness doubles back on itself and ends up kicking the audience into mesmerizing terror.
Polanksi remains uncredited in the starring role of Trelkovsky, a Polish work-visa emigre living in Paris. While we never quite learn Trelkovsky's job, we see that it attracts a boorish bunch, including one lout who takes pleasure in playing bad music at all hours simply to annoy the sick woman who lives upstairs. And speaking of noise, the Egyptologist Simone Choule, the previous tenant in Trelkovsky's digs, must have made quite the crescendo as she fell from the apartment window and crashed through glass onto the sidewalk below. Even as Trelkovsky moves in, he begins a strange consumption with the story of Simone, despite not knowing her. He visits her in the hospital primarily to make sure that she will in fact die from her injuries in order that he may secure her apartment for himself. At the hospital he meets Stella, a friend of Simone. He tells her he knows Simone because that feels more proper than admitting he is ghoulishly waiting out her demise. He and Stella experience a quick and recurring fling, through which we learn that Simone was either a lesbian or, more likely, a man who dressed and lived as a woman.
Immediately the people the new tenant meets begin trying to fit him into the mold already established by Simone, including bringing him the same drink in the cafe, converting him to her brand of cigarettes, and even giving him a kiss from an intoxicated admirer who shows up to court Simone the day after she has died.
To reveal more of the story would be to risk spoiling it and this movie has some serious surprises, including an ending that will make a point of messing you up.
Although many people consider The Tenant to be a grand artistic success, there is nothing about the direction or cinematography in this film that jumps up and grabs or slithers out and gnaws at us. The best reason to watch the film again after all this time is because Polanski proves himself possessed of considerable theatrical charm, as well as being an actor capable of tremendous understated humor and thoroughly convincing nervousness. In one memorable scene in his freshly-rented apartment, Polanksi discovers a neighbor from upstairs complaining to him about the noise his boorish guests are making. The actor's character responds by blending magnanimous charm and paranoia into his reaction. He wants to maintain the good will of his coworkers and yet is desperate to avoid annoying the landlord. About a million screwed up ways exist to poorly communicate this unease. Polanksi selects the one appropriate style.
Another acting phenomenon in The Tenant is Shelley Winters, a woman who by this time had already won and earned two Academy Awards for Acting, the first in 1960 for The Diary of Anne Frank and the second in 1966 for A Patch of Blue, a woman who made significant contributions to Lolita, The Night of the Hunter, A Place in the Sun, and I Am a Camera, a woman who had, over the years, been reduced to playing a villain in the TV show "Batman," to starring in the Roger Corman film Bloody Mama --in the former she played Ma Parker and in the latter Ma Barker--to a great performance in a shit movie called The Poseidon Adventure. Shelley Winters takes the role of the concierge and makes it into the ambiguously sinister role of a lifetime. Is she a scheming, plotting, ambitious bitch or simply a tired, unfeeling crone with a fondness for the gruesome elements of life? This was her last truly great performance and she played it as if every second counted, which of course it does.
The film is not perfect. For instance, the title character's paranoia comes from an unexamined place, one which some clues materialize to inform, but none of which hang all that well together. To an extent, the motivation for the paranoia doesn't matter because we are all so caught up in the behavior of the actors on the screen. But again, it is the ambiguity that helps propel us ass over teakettle right alongside Polanski as he causes us to wonder if he might be the man the people in his office speak about from a newspaper article, if he might indeed have a connection to Simone that spills over into one of lifestyle (which might well explain his paranoia, given the crowd he attracts), or if people actually are messing with him about the noises coming from his apartment or if instead he is making those noises and he just doesn't remember doing it. Even the presumed flaws in the film project a strong sense of suspense that lingers beyond the swinging doors of the theatre.
And besides, Bruce Lee makes an appearance.
Polanksi remains uncredited in the starring role of Trelkovsky, a Polish work-visa emigre living in Paris. While we never quite learn Trelkovsky's job, we see that it attracts a boorish bunch, including one lout who takes pleasure in playing bad music at all hours simply to annoy the sick woman who lives upstairs. And speaking of noise, the Egyptologist Simone Choule, the previous tenant in Trelkovsky's digs, must have made quite the crescendo as she fell from the apartment window and crashed through glass onto the sidewalk below. Even as Trelkovsky moves in, he begins a strange consumption with the story of Simone, despite not knowing her. He visits her in the hospital primarily to make sure that she will in fact die from her injuries in order that he may secure her apartment for himself. At the hospital he meets Stella, a friend of Simone. He tells her he knows Simone because that feels more proper than admitting he is ghoulishly waiting out her demise. He and Stella experience a quick and recurring fling, through which we learn that Simone was either a lesbian or, more likely, a man who dressed and lived as a woman.
Immediately the people the new tenant meets begin trying to fit him into the mold already established by Simone, including bringing him the same drink in the cafe, converting him to her brand of cigarettes, and even giving him a kiss from an intoxicated admirer who shows up to court Simone the day after she has died.
To reveal more of the story would be to risk spoiling it and this movie has some serious surprises, including an ending that will make a point of messing you up.
Although many people consider The Tenant to be a grand artistic success, there is nothing about the direction or cinematography in this film that jumps up and grabs or slithers out and gnaws at us. The best reason to watch the film again after all this time is because Polanski proves himself possessed of considerable theatrical charm, as well as being an actor capable of tremendous understated humor and thoroughly convincing nervousness. In one memorable scene in his freshly-rented apartment, Polanksi discovers a neighbor from upstairs complaining to him about the noise his boorish guests are making. The actor's character responds by blending magnanimous charm and paranoia into his reaction. He wants to maintain the good will of his coworkers and yet is desperate to avoid annoying the landlord. About a million screwed up ways exist to poorly communicate this unease. Polanksi selects the one appropriate style.
Another acting phenomenon in The Tenant is Shelley Winters, a woman who by this time had already won and earned two Academy Awards for Acting, the first in 1960 for The Diary of Anne Frank and the second in 1966 for A Patch of Blue, a woman who made significant contributions to Lolita, The Night of the Hunter, A Place in the Sun, and I Am a Camera, a woman who had, over the years, been reduced to playing a villain in the TV show "Batman," to starring in the Roger Corman film Bloody Mama --in the former she played Ma Parker and in the latter Ma Barker--to a great performance in a shit movie called The Poseidon Adventure. Shelley Winters takes the role of the concierge and makes it into the ambiguously sinister role of a lifetime. Is she a scheming, plotting, ambitious bitch or simply a tired, unfeeling crone with a fondness for the gruesome elements of life? This was her last truly great performance and she played it as if every second counted, which of course it does.
The film is not perfect. For instance, the title character's paranoia comes from an unexamined place, one which some clues materialize to inform, but none of which hang all that well together. To an extent, the motivation for the paranoia doesn't matter because we are all so caught up in the behavior of the actors on the screen. But again, it is the ambiguity that helps propel us ass over teakettle right alongside Polanski as he causes us to wonder if he might be the man the people in his office speak about from a newspaper article, if he might indeed have a connection to Simone that spills over into one of lifestyle (which might well explain his paranoia, given the crowd he attracts), or if people actually are messing with him about the noises coming from his apartment or if instead he is making those noises and he just doesn't remember doing it. Even the presumed flaws in the film project a strong sense of suspense that lingers beyond the swinging doors of the theatre.
And besides, Bruce Lee makes an appearance.
