The Tenant (1976)

Originally published 5/5/22.

Roman Polanski's brilliant 1976 film The Tenant represents a rare form of horror film, similar to 1981's Possession, another great film that stars Isabelle Adjani, one which dares to mix horror and comedy in a way that screams 'European sophistication.' Viewers both at the time and presently generally see moments of clumsy, awkward comedy in this film as a failing of the horror, but I see it as very intentional extension of the work of many great authors like Franz Kafka or Shirley Jackson. It's surreal and strange; nightmarish in the truest sense of the word, invoking the obscure logic of nocturnal imaginings. Scenes of our lead descending into madness - alone in his apartment, a deathly silence hanging in the air - are unsettling, and the film story and characters are all perfectly ambiguous. 

Where to even start with this one? Well, it is unique amongst Polanski's so-called 'apartment trilogy' of psychological horror classics in that it's actually about living in dense urban environments where people live in tiny chambers, stacked atop one another like pancakes. The feeling of always being watched, listened to, and of never being able to have a genuine moment to yourself and yourself alone can drive one completely off their rocker if they're not careful, as it feeds so directly into imagination and fuels paranoia. Plus, bad blood between neighbors can get really ugly, am I right?  One can't help but fear aggravating their neighbors or confronting them about the same in a world where people, we're told in the film, shoot one another down for nothing more than making too much noise after quiet time. It's a high-pressure environment, and not everyone has what it takes to navigate it, especially someone as relatively meek and mild as Trelkovsky, our lead in this cryptic narrative.

Yes, The Tenant often fixes its eyes on human nature and its ugly truths. People, in general, are not depicted in the best light in this film; in fact, they're often made out to look absurd. Our characters are clumsy, often awkward, and perpetually uncomfortable in a way that recalls Eraserhead. They don't listen to one another, they're selfish and often obsessed with maintaining the status quo by any means necessary. This idea is illustrated well with Trelkovsky's equal parts confrontational and intimidating landlord, and with his complaining neighbors who constantly rat on him for every peep he makes, but it's also seen more clearly when Trelkovsky goes to the police and is basically told to keep his head down or else. Don't disturb the peace. They even ask to see his papers. It all recalls to mind Franz Kafka's alienated, often darkly comedic brand of social horror, but especially the fiction of Shirley Jackson and her 1949 short story "The Tooth" which deals with almost identical subject matter. In particular, they both feature the loss of one's teeth coinciding with the loss of one's very identity.

What are people made of?

So, where was I? Our hero, yes. You see, Trelkovsky is a man in an awkward situation. He moves into the apartment of a not-quite-dead woman named Simone Choule who attempted suicide and is not expected to recover. Talk about awkward, but hey: real estate is a cutthroat business. Her possessions are all still right where she left them, and soon after moving in, Trelkovsky's room is burgled and his things stolen, leaving him with mostly Simone's discarded leftovers to make due with. The cafe he begins to frequent recognizes him immediately as the new tenant, and always insists on serving him Simone Choule's usual order without even asking. Even worse, they're all out of Trelkovsky's brand of cigarettes, and so he's forced to smoke Simone's brand of choice, Marlboros. Though Trelkovsky protests, the porter insists on giving him Simone's mail, and his landlord, angry at Trelkovsky's insistence on walking around at all hours of the night, suggests he wear slippers after ten o'clock like she always did. The strict rules and looming threat of complaining neighbors isolate Trelkovsky from his friends, and soon he's actually hanging out with Simone's friends and getting rather close with her ex-maybe-lover, Stella. Their idea of a party, by the way, is listening to Simone's old records and exchanging her books. Then our lead discovers one of Simone's teeth hidden in the wall of the apartment behind the bookcase, and from there, things go south very quickly.

(spoiler alert!)

He begins willingly buying the Marlboros, even while we see others buying his preferred brand. Then he starts wearing her makeup: first just a little nail polish, then eyeliner, blush, and pretty soon he's buying a wig and putting on Simone's clothes. He believes his neighbors are trying to turn him into Simone Choule, apparently to drive him to suicide, and so begins to see a vast conspiracy against him everywhere he turns, culminating in him attacking a poor elderly couple that hits him with their car when he runs out into the road after having something of a psychotic break. Things reach the point of no return when he pulls out his own tooth, which pushes him even further into his new identity. At one point, Trellkovsky asks: "At what precise moment does an individual stop being who he thinks he is? Cut off my arm. I say, 'Me and my arm.' You cut off my other arm. I say, 'Me and my two arms.' You take out my stomach, my kidneys, assuming that were possible... And I say, 'Me and my intestines.' And now, if you cut off my head... would I say, 'Me and my head' or 'Me and my body?' What right has my head to call itself me?"

The film's treatment of gender will likely cause a variety of reactions, mostly negative, from all across the aisle. Those who aren't put off by such an androgynous film may very well find it distasteful that Trelkovsky's transformation into Simone Choule is played alternatively for horror or even laughs, but I can't help but applaud its boldness, and it doesn't strike me as bigoted in any way. Simone Choule is explicitly a lesbian, and when a brash American dickhead uses queer in a derisive context, it doesn't prompt much laughter among those present: only frowns. Towards the end, we get to see Polanski play with the imagery from his own films and proto-slashers of the era, only this time the final girl wielding a knife against her attacker is Roman Polanski in a bad wig. It feels imaginative and playful and I enjoyed it immensely. Blurring the lines of gender and identity is fascinating stuff, and this film tackles it in a fashion that doesn't at all feel like something from '76. 

I want to believe

Another thing it blurs is the line between reality and fantasy, par for the course for psychological horror maybe, but here it is done with enough ambiguity to make it unique. It's often hard to tell whether Trelkovsky is just plain off his rocker, or if there really is some sort of sinister conspiracy infecting the building. Early occurrences hint heavily that way, but later events, especially the ending, seem to suggest that Trelkovsky's neighbors are the real victims, who have to watch a man gruesomely mutilate himself in front of them without having any earthly idea why, all while the poor sod accuses them of being responsible. And in the middle of the night too! Trelkovsky engages in some oddly compulsive behavior at a few points in the film, which could either be his own personality quirk or something of Simone's that he has inherited. Either way: he's nosy, and rarely wastes an opportunity to snoop. Though he protests being given Simone Choule's mail, he immediately opens it when he gets it to his room, leaving the question deliberately murky. I think the strongest evidence for Trelkovsky being an unhinged voyeur comes from his final scenes in Stella's apartment, where he begins digging through her things much the same way as he did Simone's, before becoming paranoid, trashing the place, and eventually even robbing poor Stella blind and leaving. Could it be that this man just became obsessed with Simone Choule's life and its awful end? Either way, it reminds me of a potentially more complex and interesting take on Hitchcock's Rear Window, where the snoop ends up punished in the most horrifying and Twilight Zone-esque way possible, rather than rewarded for his curiosity and obsession. Sometimes, it bears repeating: mind your own business!

The final thread of this film's rich tapestry is perhaps the most compelling and mysterious: that of its obsession with Egyptology. Egyptian iconography is placed all over Simone's apartment, and she seemingly reads nothing but books about Egypt, which is later explained when we find out that she works in the Egyptology department of the Louvre. Towards the climax, however, Trelkovsky discovers Egyptian hieroglyphics in the toilets that imply some kind of greater conspiracy that perhaps Simone Choule was in danger of blowing open, which is the film's biggest WTF-moment. Combine all of this with the imagery of Simone Choule wrapped from head-to-toe in bandages just like, say, a mummy, and it becomes a clear motif that has to mean something fairly significant to the story. Film historian Nathaniel Thompson believes this all to be an allusion to the Egyptian belief in preserving human souls in little chambers, not unlike insects in amber. This is illustrated fairly well in the scene where Trelkovsky looks at his apartment from the windows at the toilets and sees a doppelganger of himself, going about its business without noticing him. The supernatural aspect of the story feels very reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining or Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, where the protagonist is in danger of becoming a permanent part of the building's history.

And that's not everything either. Why do people stand in the toilets for so long, even accounting for the cryptic hieroglyphics etched into the walls? What's up with that ritual Trelkovsky sees a bit of? The one with the elaborate fool costume and a replica of Trelkovsky's face? And why was the woman with the disabled daughter at Simone Choule's funeral in an early scene? This film is wonderfully vague and psychologically complex enough to allow viewers to come away with their own unique perspective on it, and it's bizarre enough that you likely won't forget it.

Always a place for you here

(end of spoilers)

Polanski's performance is shockingly strong given his relative inexperience as an actor. He's had more experience than the average joe, but he is certainly not known for his acting, which makes it especially surprising that he turns in such a pitch-perfect performance. Visually, this is a gritty film with no end of that trademark seventies texture and a relatively drab color palette that emphasizes its urban setting's ugliness. The cinematography is straightforward and tightly wound. The score is near-perfect: wispy chimes and moody strings are utilized sparingly and effectively, yet composer Philippe Sarde also knows how to kick up an unholy racket where appropriate. Extensive use of ADR'ed dialog, as ever, is likely to be divisive: like many films of its time and place, the film was shot without sound and everything was dubbed in later, which I didn't find too distracting but I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice it from time to time. The strangest thing about this is that the filmmakers even went as far as to dub over Isabelle Adjani's voice with that of some other, uncredited woman, which is quite odd. I mean, what, was her accent too thick or something? Without subtitles, you can barely understand half of what Polanski says throughout most of the film, yet you replaced her voice?  

If you enjoy films with depth and horror films that take everyday fears and anxieties and put them to imaginative use, then I wholeheartedly recommend The Tenant, along with the rest of Polanski's oeuvre. It is unique in the horror canon thanks to its flirtations with a kind of absurd existential comedy, flirtations that manage to somehow not get in the way of the film's oppressive horror atmosphere and bleak, nihilistic story, and at times even enhance it.