+1
Hello. This is Antariksh. I am from India. Being an ardent fan of Roman Polanski, the Tenant to me is a treat. I went through the entire discussion and found different interpretations. Considering Trelkovsky being and insane can serve the purpose, but there are many aspects of the film that will remain incomplete. The change in his breakfast habits, like having hot chocolate instead of coffee and taking to Marlboro suggest that he is going through a phase of metamorphosis. But he sees a figure standing motionless in the toilet even before he visits the coffee shop for the first time. Like our friend said above that while he is moving in the apartment, there are already a couple of boxes in there. People will assume that director has saved some screen time. But it is kind of weird and suggests that it is a dream. In a sequence, he is strangled by the woman who brings the petition to him. Instantly the director cuts into the police station. It may also suggest that the hallucination was just an exaggerated scene used as a metaphor to exhibit the mental state of Trelkovsky. But what about the toilet?
From the day Trelkovsky walked into the apartment, he didn't use the toilet even once? There was just one single toilet, the common one. Where did Trelkovsky go to relieve his own self all those days?
I want to make a comment. According to the Egyptian mythology and being a Hindu, I must also mention that in the Hindu mythology, we believe that everything happening has happened before and will happen again. There is a fourth dimension prevailing that we can't see with our naked eyes. We see what we are allowed to see. It's considered that animals can see and listen to the beings from that fourth dimension. So at the same time, a person is not living just one life but several others. Not just on this earth but in the infinite galaxies. Life of an individual is a collective form of all the forms of a soul or a spirit. And everybody else around us is a part of our own self. Everybody is a part of that Supreme energy. Thus, there's nothing more than one. Everyone in this world, in the galaxy, in the entire universe is just one. What we refer to as God.
Trelkovsky is stuck in the cycle of birth and death and is doing so time and again. It actually happens according to Hindu mythology. There is something that has to be learnt. A sort of lesson that almighty wants to teach. One who learns, achieves salvation or NIRVANA. One who doesn't, is sent again to settle the things in correct manner. By doing so, the soul attains maturity and as our spirit becomes mature, it knows how to face the challenges of life. Perform karma or action in a righteous manner and rising up from the common souls to achieve salvation.
Trelkosvsky would be sent time and again in the same ambience and with the same people in the same situation, may be in a different form to make things even. Each time he'd commit suicide, he'd fail and come back.
This can be an angle to the questions arising in viewer's mind.