Roman Polanski's The Tenant - A Discussion

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watching The Tenant recently proved to be such a strange experience for me that I decided to start a thread about it. You can read my initial (yet all too brief, and somewhat generous) tab regarding the film at the bottom of the post here

The Tenant had me torn in many ways, surrounding the ambiguous nature of what happens to Polanski's character Trelkovsky. In my initial tab I held back on some of the things that really bugged me about the film not least the inconclusive ending, and the often pretentious symbolism. Whilst I admired the technical aspects, and thought it was well acted (from the supporting cast especially); I just couldn't decide if it was genius or just a load of self indulgent recycled hogwash from Polanski. What do you think it meant? What was Polanski trying to do?

I know Mark f is eager to discuss this one, and you can read his thoughts on it here

I believe our very own Harry Lime watched the movie recently too and rated it highly; so if you feel like chipping in Harry your thoughts would be very much appreciated.





What was pretentious about it?
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The fact that it (the tooth in the wall for example) didn't appear to make any sense, or have any bearing on the plot save to 'suggest' that Trelkovsky 'might' be going insane; or that someone had put it there deliberately to unnerve him. What was the significance of the Egyptian symbolism? the hieroglyphics in the bathroom? Or the bathroom scene in which he could see his own image watching him from his apartment window. It just seemed a bit random to me, you know weird for weird's sake - hence pretentious.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
What I'm beginning to believe about the movie is that it's a ghost story or nightmare, constructed in an endless loop. Even during the opening credits, we see Trelkovsky in the window of the apartment. After the camera circles around the place and the credits draw to a close, showing the broken garden roof from the suicide attempt, it ends up at the same window with an image of a woman (the jumper) this time. Trelkovsky immediately shows up at the concierage who shows him the apartment. Trelkovsky mentions nothing about why he needs the apartment. In fact, we never see him living at any other place. The concierage does seem to show hearty glee when she talks about how the former tenant jumped out the window. Later, Monsieur Zy treats Trelkovsky with disdain and then says he likes him.

After Trelkovsky goes to the hospital (taking a bag of fruit (!?) for a comatose patient), he meets Stella. When the woman (who's entirely wrapped up in bandages, similarly to a mummy) begins to scream after Stella asks her if she recognizes her, the couple leave. I'm not going into the details about going to watch Enter the Dragon and making out in the theatre in this post. When Trelkovsky later learns that the woman has died, he immediately moves into the apartment although we never actually see him move. he has a box or two inside the apartment, but where they came from, I wouldn't know. He has his housewarming party with his friends who apparently all work together with him. Trelkovsky's biggest worry about the apartment was that the bathroom was on the other side of the courtyard on the same floor. His drunk friend even has to piss in his sink and complains that his apartment is lousy. Why did Trelkovsky take the apartment, how did he know it was available, who was the friend (or relative) who told him about it? We have no idea. However, I believe it's because of Fate or Destiny, and I believe that Trelkovsky has already gone through this transformation before. Why else does he see so many ghosts of himself throughout the apartment? Why else does the woman at the end of the movie, the same one we see early on with Stella, turn out to be Trelkovsky?

Stella has a friend who gives Trelkovsky a book which belonged to the dead woman. It was about Egyptology. Egyptian hieroglyphics make an appearance in the restroom in the one scene we see inside there. Now, it's true that Trelkovsky sees many people in the restroom not moving for hours, but the one time we see him in there, we can see him back in his own apartment, looking at himself through binoculars although he apparently doesn't recognize himself. Is it the actual apartment which is haunted? Are there other ghosts who are doomed to endlessly live a cycle of horrible life and attempted death in the apartment? Or is it just Trelkovsky? Or is Trelkovsky just insane? I don't really think so even though he's obviously hallucinating at times. But then again, why do the neighbors always complain of noise, even when there is no noise. Are they all trying to get to sleep (die) and keep having "newcomers", such as Trelkovsky, who haven't caught on to how to behave when you're dead, even if you have living friends?

You see, this is more interesting to me than a simple look at the film which says that Trelkovsky is crazy because we know nothing about him at all before the film begins and we learn very little about him afterwards, except that his friend tells him that he lets people walk all over him and he should take fuller charge of his own life. However, if it's clear that something strange is going on with Trelkovsky from the beginning, it sort of takes away some of the mystery too. You see; there's nobody to root for here, unlike Rosemary's Baby, which almost comes across as a documentary but at least reveals layers of reality one skin at a time. This film leaves it open but in a way that almost turns it into something pointless. I mean, it's not like The Innocents where we actually can see the results of peoples' behavior and mostly all understand them from different perspectives. The thing which maddens me about The Tenant is that there is no perspective, and I'm not even sure if the people in the movie actually do anything. The whole movie could just be Trelkovsky in the hospital bed reliving a nightmare. If so, what does that mean and why should we care?
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Trelkovsky was insane, the significance was that he was insane. Polanski still did a good job in maintaining that doubt in the viewer though, at least I thought so. Whether he was driven insane by some supernatural force, maybe.

edit: following a "mark post" on a film is never good, kinda left the computer for a biut come back and post, and there's a huge in depth write-up by Mark. Great.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
If it's just two hours about an insane character with no rhyme or reason as to what makes him that way, why make the movie? Especially considering Polanski's filmography, it seems to be a pointless film if there's not something to "get" from it.



But then again, why do the neighbors always complain of noise, even when there is no noise. Are they all trying to get to sleep (die) and keep having "newcomers", such as Trelkovsky, who haven't caught on to how to behave when you're dead, even if you have living friends?
This is stretching it a bit, don't you think? How about he made noise all the time but didn't realize it, because he was insane? Or some force was deliberately creating it to add tension to his living conditions to push him over the edge?

And while you may believe there's no point to it if it's just him being insane, the actual doubt that Polanski creates in the viewer is what led me to appreciate it more than the typical film that would address a persons decent into madness. Whether he's insane and what drove him to it, some supernatural force or being thrown into a certain situation surrounded by certain people.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I'm stretching it because I'm trying to find reasons for the film to be interesting, aside from the fact that it's got just about the largest collection of Oscar winners in it than almost any movie. Now, if you really want to see me stretch something, wait until I post after Used's response. I'm sure that Sir Toose will chime in too soon enough. You don't like any of my discussion so far?



That what's so fascinating to me; why did Polanski make the film at all? What (if anything) was he trying to say?

I agree the ending turned the story into a paradoxical non-event, and felt like a cruel joke. Or maybe Polanski was just stuck in a creative conundrum, and making The Tenant was a cathartic journey with the ending his final goodbye to those themes. I'm actually starting to look at Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and The Tenant as a trilogy of sorts. Maybe The Tenant takes on new meaning in that light...

Great post by the way Mark, really gave me a perspective (re it being a ghost story) that I'd not considered before.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Did anybody else (obviously yes, since the person I watched it with caught it after I rewound it) notice how often Trelfovsky is compared to a woman? One character says that he has a heart of a woman. Another one says that no man would take such time to listen to his problems. Stella says that the former roommate wasn't interested in men. I started to wonder if Stella wasn't interested in men either and that Trelkovsky may have actually been a woman. Therefore, it wouldn't have been that big a "stretch" for him to dress up in women's clothes since they would have been his own. (Yeah, I know, he buys a wig later on; so what?). Of course, it could also just fall into part of the insane question, but I still don't have any idea why he he would dress up as a woman unless it wasn't some form of his reality, whether "he"'s a ghost or not.

One other thing I want to say is that funeral scene in the church is probably the best scene in the flick, where the Priest changes from a regular, by-the-book funeral (which I found strange if she committed suicide) to lashing out personally at what seemed to be Trelkovsky. That scene showed what The Tenant could have been like if it really had the guts to explore certain themes. I really hope that the movie wasn't just a way for Polanski to finally exorcise the demons over the murder of his wife and child because I would have hoped that he'd done that with Macbeth and Chinatown. In many ways, Polanski seems much more pathetic than Trelkovsky, but I love Polanski anyway, no matter if it sounds like I'm being a biatch.



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
I realize that you don't like to discuss your personal reasons why you like something a lot and not like other things so much, but how do you determine your ratings? How can you think so much of this flick? How do you compare it to other Polanski films or other films about people who may or may not be insane? I'm trying to decipher the inscrutable Harry Lime here. I will not criticize (not even constructively) a single word you say unless you say I can about certain specific things. I want you to feel safe. Honestly. I'm on your side.



I want you to feel safe. Honestly. I'm on your side.
Let's just say I'm paranoid, like a certain character in a certain film who is not a woman and is not dead who feels persecuted a lot, like the director who played that certain character was in his life at an early age, having to hide.

(I don't really feel like that, well kind of - just not to that extent, but you maybe get what I'm saying)

Ratings for Polanski (sorry no write-ups):

Knife in the Water 4/5
Repulsion 5/5
Rosemary's Baby 4/5
Chinatown 5/5
The Tenant 4.5/5
Frantic 3/5
The Pianist 5/5



why mention that you have something to report and then not report it, mark?

[edit] unless you're waiting till the gang's all gathered to tell us who done it, poirot-style. that'd be cool. [/edit]

the tenant is pretty awesome, even if it is really open-ended. i'm in the camp that thinks that trelkovsky actually did turn into the woman in the hospital and that there was some sort of loop (maybe not a perfect one but something like in the third policeman -- a spiral perhaps). i'm still confused as to what the others in the haunted building were doing to him though it does seem plausible that they were in a similar situation what with the always staring at the hieroglyphics. you know, even when trelkovsky seems to have his stuff together, all the other characters are nuts, so even if it's only half or 2 thirds of the time that what he's seeing is real, he's still better off than the rest of paris.



the guy who wrote that article apparently has a similar sense of humor as me and liked a lot of the same scenes, but other than that, i don't think i really got much out of it. the tenant is both funny and sad? true. the tenant may be an allegory for: a) how the world is cruel and insane and the only sane response is to go crazy, b) how the iron heel of normal societ beats down on artists and other sensitive types.... okay, well... the world may be cruel and insane, but it's not really like in that movie, and that's not really the only (certainly not the most original) response anyway. also, trelkovsky is a sad, sympathetic character who gets a lot of pity from me (even if we don't really know what led him to make the choice to put himself in that apartment, which is a reasonable complaint to make, i think), but he hardly seems to be an artist or even much of an outsider.

it doesn't have to be an either-or proposition but most of the things i like in the movie have less to do with any overarching point than with the mise en scene (hope i'm using that term right) and how it's used to create a fine-grained fantasy world.



it doesn't have to be an either-or proposition but most of the things i like in the movie have less to do with any overarching point than with the mise en scene (hope i'm using that term right) and how it's used to create a fine-grained fantasy world.
Yes! This contributes a lot to my appreciation of the film.