El inquilino

After his classic film noir homage Chinatown Roman Polanski returned to the themes that had given him his greatest hits in the 60s with this creepy psychological horror which, like Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, deals with the paranoia and claustrophobia generated by apartment living.

Claustrophobic environments are the ones which Polanski is best at creating, and this has to be the most suffocating and confined picture he ever created. The emphasis on side walls and distant vanishing points is greater than ever, and even in the small number of exterior scenes the sky is rarely glimpsed. But The Tenant is not just confined spatially, but also in the intensity with which it focuses on its protagonist. Trelkovsky, played by Polanski himself is not only in every scene, he is in virtually every shot. When he is not on screen more often than not the camera becomes Trelkovsky's point of view. And of course almost everywhere he looks he sees his own reflection staring back at him in a mirror.

I can't think of any film that is more about the internalisation and solitude of one character. Some psychological thrillers, like M or Peeping Tom, manipulate us into feeling sorry for the mentally ill protagonist. Others, like Psycho, attempt in-depth scientific analysis of his mental condition. The Tenant fits into neither of these categories – it simply immerses us completely inside Trelkovsky's experience without demanding we actually understand or appreciate what is going on inside his head. We feel his paranoia and obsession even though it is constantly revealed to us that they are irrational.

Polanski was also a master of the slowly unfolding horror film. Often in his horrors there is an ambiguity as to whether there is actually anything sinister going on, but they are among the most effective at frightening audiences. Why? Precisely because they unfold so slowly and invest so much time in painstakingly setting up situations that they immerse the viewer in paranoia. A much later Polanski horror, The Ninth Gate is a bit of a mess plot-wise but at least it still manages to achieve that creeping sense of dread.

This is a rare chance to see Polanski himself in a major role. His talent in front of the camera was as good as behind it, and he is absolutely perfect as the meek Trelkovsky. Another standout performance is that of the all-too-often overlooked Shelley Winters as the concierge. In actual fact it is rather a stellar cast, although many of the familiar faces look out of place in this strange, Gothic European movie. Also sadly many of the French actors in supporting roles are atrociously dubbed in the English language version.

The Tenant is more polished and less pretentious than Repulsion, but it lacks the suspense and the character that make Rosemary's Baby so engrossing and entertaining. The Tenant is good, with no major flaws, and Polanski was really on top form as a director, but it's not among his most gripping works.

A Kafkaesque thriller of alienation and paranoia. Extremely well done and Polanski performs well as the diffident introvert trying hard to adapt to his dingy Paris lodgings and his fellow lodgers. Horrifying early on because of the seeming mean and self obsessed fellow tenants and horrifying later on as he develops his defences which will ultimately be his undoing. Personally I could have done without the cross dressing element but I accept the nod to Psycho and the fact that it had some logic, bearing in mind the storyline. Nevertheless it could have worked without and would have removed the slightly theatrical element, but then maybe that was intended because the courtyard certainly seems to take on the look of a theatre at the end. I can't help feel that there are more than a few of the director's own feelings of not being a 'real' Frenchman and Jewish to boot. Still, there is plenty to enjoy here including a fine performance from a gorgeous looking Isabelle Adjani and good old Shelly Winters is as reliable as ever.

Roman Polanski is considered as one of the most important directors of our time, as the mind behind classics such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown". Probably what makes Polanski's cinema a very interesting one is the fact that while he is capable of creating commercially attractive films such as the afore mentioned masterpieces, he is also fond of making low-key movies that are of a more personal nature. "Le Locataire", or "The Tenant", is one of those movies; a horror/suspense story about paranoia and obsession that is among his best works and probably among the best horror movies ever done.

Polanski himself plays Telkovsky, a young man looking for an apartment in France. When he finally finds one, he discovers that it is empty because the previous tenant, Simone Choule, attempted to kill herself by jumping out of the window. After Simone dies of the injuries, Trelkovsky begins to become obsessed with her, to the point of believing that her death was caused by the rest of the tenants in the building.

While sharing the same claustrophobic feeling of his other "apartment-themed" films ("Repulsion & "Rosemary's Baby"); this film focuses on the bizarre conspiracy that may or may not be entirely in Trelkovsky's head, the catastrophic effects the paranoia has on his mind, and the bizarre obsession he has with the previous tenant.

Trelkovsky's descend into darkness is portrayed perfectly by Polanski. While at first his performance seems odd and wooden, slowly one finds out that Polanski acts that way because Trelkovsky is meant to be acted that way; as a simpleton with almost no life, who traps himself in this maddening sub-world that happens to be inhabited by a collection of bizarre people. The supporting actors really gave life to the people in the building creating memorable characters that are very important for the success of the film.

Also, the beautiful cinematography Polanski employs in the film helps to increase the feeling of isolation, and gives life to the beautiful building that serves as cage for Trelkovsky. The haunting images Polanski uses to convey the feeling of confusion and madness are of a supernatural beauty that makes them both frightening and attractive.

If a flaw is to be found in the film, is that it is definitely a bit slow at first. this may sound like a turn-off but in fact the slow pace of the beginning works perfectly as it mimics Trelkovsky's own boring life and how gradually he enters a different realm. Also, the convoluted storyline is definitely not an easy one to understand due to the many complex layers it has. However, more than a flaw, it is a joy to face a thought-provoking plot like this one.

While "The Tenant" may not be for everyone, those interested in psychological horror and surreal story lines will be pleased by the experience. "Le Locataire" is really one of Roman Polanksi's masterpieces. 10/10

I'm a pretty old dude, old enough to remember the taste of Oreos and Coke as they were 50-55 years ago, when every taste for a kid was fresh. I wish I have somehow set some aside then is some magical suspended locker, so that I could taste those things today. This magical locker might even have adjusted the fabric of the food to account for how I've drifted, physically and otherwise, a sort of dynamic chemistry of expectations. Over the half century, they would have had to adjust quite a bit, because you see I would have known that I set them aside. Eating one now would be a celebration of self and past, and story, and sense that would almost make the intervening years an anticipated reward.

I didn't have enough sense to do that with original Coke. And I couldn't have invented one of those magical psychic lockers — not then. But I did something almost as good. In the seventies, I really tuned into Roman Polanski. He was a strange and exotic pleasure — you know, movies smuggled out of the Soviet block. Movies so sensitive to beauty that you cry for weeks afterward. Movies that make you want to live with Polish women, one, and then deciding that they would be the last to get it.

Here's what I did. I took what I knew would be my favorite Polanski movie and set it aside. I did not watch it. I deferred until I thought I would be big enough to deserve it. Over the years, I would test myself, my ability to surround beauty and delineate it without occupying it. There probably are few Poles who have worked at this, practicing to deserve Chopin. Working to deserve womanness when I see it. Trying to get the inners from the edges.

Recently, I achieved something like assurance that it was time to pull this out. I already knew that I was already past the time when this would work optimally, because I had already seen and understood "9th Gate."

If you do not know this, it is about a man who innocently rents a room in which the previous tenant (about whom the story is named) jumped out the window, to die later after this man (played by Polanski) visits. What happens is that time folds and he becomes this woman. We are fooled into believing that he is merely mad. But the way we follow him, he is not. He merely has flashes that the world is normal, and that the surrounding people are not part of a coven warping his reality.

The story hardly matters. What matters is how Polanksi shapes this thing, both in the way he inhabits the eye that only makes edges and in inhabiting the body that only consists of confused flesh. The two never meet. There is a dissonance that may haunt me for the next 30 years. Its the idea about and inside and an outside with no edges at all — at all except a redhead wig.

I know of no one else that could do this, this sketch that remains a sketch, this horror that remains natural.

To understand the genius of this, you have to know one of the greatest films ever made; "Rear Window." The genius of that film is the post-noir notion that the camera shapes the world; that the viewer creates the story. What Roman does is take this movie and turn it inside out. In Rear Window, the idea was that the on-screen viewer (Jimmy Stewart) was the anchor and everything else was fiction, woven as we watched. Here, the on screen apartment dweller is the filmmaker. We know this. We know that everything we see is true because he is the narrator. We know it is true that bodies shift identity, that times shift, that causality is plastic. We know that the narrator will kill us. We know that the narrator will leave us in a perpetual horror, on that edge that he imputes but never shows us and lets us imagine.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

How can I be so devoted to this film? I'm a fairly ordinary person with a very regular life, so, why am I drawn to this darkness. "The Tenant", "Rosemary's Baby", "Kiss Of The Spider Woman", "Apartment Zero" are films I've seen many, many times. All of them terrifying in their own way. Last night, I saw "The Tenant" again for the nth time. I was as riveted and unsettled as I was the very first time I saw it. There is something about playing with our inner-fears without actually confirm or deny anything that makes it a genre of its own. A provocation of sorts. If Polansky is unique behind the camera he is also remarkable in front of it. His performance here is a tragic-comic creation of the first order. For film lovers all over the world, this is a real must see!