L'inquilino del terzo piano

This is a wonderfully tense and intensely claustrophobic film with a slowly escalating and relentless psychologically terror. Roman Polanski stays true to his style from Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion. But this movie is more than a simple examination of the onset of insanity from within the person who is experiencing it. The theme of loneliness and the sense of purposeless petty existence are the real backdrop of this excellent work, the fact which makes it similar to Kubrick's Shining. Still, The Tenant has deeper literary roots. In my opinion, the inspiration for this movie came right from the great works of European literature -- the influence of Edgar A. Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Nikolai Gogol is simply obvious. Poe's tales of madness out of loneliness, Hoffmann's stories of tragic delirium (most prominently, The Sandman, Majorat, and The Mines of Falun), and, of course, Gogol's eerie The Overcoat provided Polanski with the inspiration for this modern examination of the same topics.

Trelkovsky, a French citizen of Polish origin, is a nondescript and unassuming loner who moves into an apartment the previous occupant of which, a young woman, has thrown herself out of the window. The building is owned by the stern and ice-cold old man, who is hell bent on making sure his tenants do not make any noise and do not cause any trouble. He (and his underlings in the building) consider any sign of life to be "trouble." The old man spends much of his time enforcing a near-police-state-like order within the building. Undeniably, all kind of extremely weird things are going on in the building and I will not dwell on them. But it is the strange intrusiveness of the police-state which injects real terror into Trelkovsky's life. Faced with absurdity after absurdity, he makes some meek attempts to complain and ask for explanations: instead, noone is even ready to listen to him -- he is being treated like a piece of dirt practically by everyone.

It is also important that Trelkovsky's plunge into madness occurs suddenly and very abruptly. It seems almost like a psychological breakdown and a rebellion at the same time. He has lived the life of conformity, compliance, and quite resentment, never able to stand his ground or even establish his individual sovereignty. Trelkovksy's meekness is simply striking. His sudden and violent obsession with not letting "them" make him into the previous occupant of the flat is a pathological and concentrated reaction to the years of pent up passive aggression and anger. The infernal scream at the end of the film is the wild shout of anguish. In a certain sense, the completely unexpected finale of the film presents a huge puzzle which is not really intended to be resolved. But Polanski seems to be investing it with important symbolic meaning. This world is full of multiple Trelkovskys, little, unnoticeable people terrorized by their own sense of total insignificance. This is a vicious cycle of dependence between people's unconscious yet compulsive cruelty to each other and the tortured compliance with this cruelty by others.

This is an excellent, dark and captivating film in the best traditions of European psychological Gothic literature. I strongly recommend to watch this movie and take a look at Poe's, Hoffmann's and Gogol's stories.

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!

Meek, tiny, almost insignificant. Polanski finds the invisibility of his characters and makes something enormous out of it. In front and behind the camera he creates one of the most uncomfortable masterpieces I had the pleasure to see and see and see again. It never let's me down. People, even people who know me pretty well, thought/think there was/is something wrong with me, based on my attraction, or I should say, devotion for "Le Locataire" They may be right, I don't know but there is something irresistibly enthralling within Polanski's darkness and I haven't even mentioned the humor. The mystery surrounding the apartment and the previous tenant, the mystery that takes over him and, naturally, us, me. That building populated by great old Academy Award winners: Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters, Jo Van Fleet, Lila Kedrova. For anyone who loves movies, this is compulsory viewing. One, two, three, many, many viewings.

I once lived with a roommate who attempted suicide, and our apartment was in a building where you could get a fifty dollar noise violation for sneezing after midnight - so, needless to say, I can easily relate to Polanski's "The Tenant."

But I also enjoy the film for other reasons. I'm not sure that it works, on the whole - the Polanski character's descent into paranoia and madness, which takes up the final half hour or so, seems rather jarring and bizarre. Ebert, for one, was totally unconvinced, and he slapped the movie with a vicious one-star review. But I think that individual scenes and moments work beautifully, so even though I don't quite understand the whole film - what does Egyptology have to do with it, for example? - I still have an overall positive impression of it.

I love the obnoxious friend portrayed by Bernard Fresson, for example. God, how many times have I settled for having stupid friends like that instead of no friends at all! I love the movie theater scene - the funniest "making out" moment in the history of film, I'd say. And boy, do I love Isabelle Adjani - she's so foxy in this movie, it's almost unbelievable. And she gives a great performance, as always.

Polanski is a good actor, too; I don't agree with the occasional disparaging remarks made about his performance here. His character is supposed to be low-key and thoughtful, so his low-key performance fits. I, for one, found him perfectly sympathetic - though he did lose me a bit when he started dressed in drag for no clearly discernible reason.

Yes, the movie's obscure. And slow. But it captures the alienating qualities of apartment living - something I've done entirely too much of - so I dig it. It's funny how all you need is a common reference point, and suddenly a weirdo movie like this becomes deeply significant! Definitely worth picking up for pocket change on DVD.

Normally a great fan of Roman Polanski's work, I must confess that I just didn't get The Tenant. The story details a Pole living in Paris taking over the apartment of a woman who jumped out of the window of said apartment. The apartment has some strange power in it and quickly transforms the new tenant's life for the worse...in fact things literally fall apart for him. Polanski plays the Pole and does a serviceable job. I always thought he was a pretty decent actor. The people living in the apartment building are equally good and bizarre with Shelley Winters standing out as the concierge. Polanski also does a rather deft job behind the camera creating tension and a foreboding feeling in many scenes. What then is the problem? It has to be the weird script which hints at story lines and never really explains any of the action, particularly the ending. I just didn't buy the outcome. Why did it happen? Why was there a tooth in the wall(an effective scene if not an unexplained one)? I can't go into to much detail about the fate that befalls Polanski's character, but it seems to come out of nowhere. I know this film is revered by many as one of the great horror films of all time. I never was scared by anything except the convoluted plot being taken seriously. Maybe the film is trying to be too enigmatic and symbolic. I don't know, but what I do know is The Tenant left me with an unsatisfied feeling. It certainly isn't a bad film, but I didn't think it was great either. There were large tracts within that were just plain boring, and though Polanski is definitely one of the greatest directors of all time - he can and has been guilty of downplaying scenes too much. I can say the same for some of the scenes in Repulsion. I also believe that this film needs to be seen more than once, but I will definitely have to work up to that chore another time. As with much of Polanski's work, there is a dose of black humour laced throughout. I really enjoyed the scenes of Polanski's character seeing the woman who jumped out of the window in hospital almost completely covered with bandages. He visits not for concern for the girl but with hopes that she will die and he will land her apartment. These scenes are underlined with a very dark, amusing edge and an appropriate irony to the film's denouement.