Roman Polanski's The Tenant - A Discussion

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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Well, the only reasons I hesitate to discuss what a couple of different people say about what the book means is that {1} if somebody here were going to read the novel, then it would be a major spoiler, and (2) most people don't even mention this when discussing the novel but it seems very significant to me so maybe these other people are projecting or just plain wrong. It does tie into what we've discussed so far but it actually stretches it well past anything we've come up with yet. Where's Toose?
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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Spoiler Tags are idiot-proof and I'm an idiot. I imagine that everyone's going to read it anyway, so this is what I came across when I first started researching the novel.

Novel Spoilers Below

Trelkovsky may not even be real. He may be a projection from a nightmare Simone Choule (the original tenant) is having in the hospital while in a coma. Supposedly it's revealed near the end that Simone believes that she's really a man named Trelkovsky and was forced by the other tenants (perhaps an Egyptian cult) to transfer himself into a woman and erase all signs of his personality. Trelkovsky is the true reflection of how Simone sees herself but as she's dying she seems to relive the entire experience again. One person says that this is a fact in the novel while another one says it is a possible interpretation. Both say that it doesn't mean that Simone (or Trelkovsky, if you prefer) isn't insane but that the novel does offer more options and details and that there's the possibility that the character was not insane but stressed and perhaps even drugged by the "cult" to cause what appear to be hallucinations.

I only offer this as something about the book. I don't know if it's accurate or not. If it helps anybody out with the movie, fine, but I don't interpret movies based on their source material.



HA!

I only offer this as something about the book. I don't know if it's accurate or not. If it helps anybody out with the movie, fine, but I don't interpret movies based on their source material.
It makes sense not to interpret (or evaluate) based on the "source", but i think it's a pretty reasonable interpretation of the film or at least as reasonable as "trelkovsky is real and being tricked/bewitched into becoming this woman by his neighbors".... man, that is a weird cult! why would they want to do that to someone? maybe just to exercise their complete dominion over reality... but it does remind me of the book of creation myths that i read as a kid that just seemed really really creepy as parts of systems that are so distant and esoteric.

thanks for sharing.



After reading all this I am getting my copy down from the shelf, dust it off and watch it as i haven't for ages I saw it at the theater back in the seventies and thought it was brilliant then
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I recently saw The Tenant and was totally confused by the ending, but it definitely suggested to me that there was something supernatural going on and a lot more to it than "Trelkovsky was crazy." I'm inclined to agree with Mark's "loop theory", but since Polanski clearly intended a great deal of ambiguity, maybe there is no right answer. I thought the film was brilliantly atmospheric and deeply unsettling, but perhaps my biggest problem with it was that I never felt like I really got to know Trelkovsky at all. Early on he seems sort of quiet and reserved, but by the end he's gone apesh!t and is cross-dressing in order to emulate the old tenant. What's the motivation here? We never really get inside of his head and since he is the protagonist I feel like we ought to.

Another thing: what was up with that church scene? I couldn't make much sense of it but I figure it must have some significance.
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I just read this article which talks about Topor's novel and found it pretty eye opening.
It's about as conclusive as the film...

"What is most surprising about Roland Polanski’s adaptation of The Tenant is..."
I just couldn't decide if it was genius or just a load of self indulgent recycled hogwash from Polanski.
I'm leaning towards the latter. Doesn't he do this quite a bit? Wasn't his Macbeth different?

The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
That's what I was thinking.



"I smell sex and candy here" - Marcy Playground
... but since Polanski clearly intended a great deal of ambiguity, maybe there is no right answer.
I don't know. I wouldn't give him credit for clear intentions. Maybe he had a quota to fill as a director and now he's laughing his head off, anytime he comes across a serious discussion such as this.



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.



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Very interesting discussion! I find this discussion more interesting than the film itself!


My intial thoughts were Trelkovsky a plain and agreeable character seemingly buckles under the authoritarian and frankly unpleasant rule of the apartment owner and dominant personality’s within the complex. We see his nature when money is taken from him by a beggar. Trelkovsky personality is not able to grow and the confined nature of the apartment is maybe symbolic of this. we see his discomfort and the glaring contrast when his friend plays music loudly in his own appartment which would likely upset people. Then he cracks.

In terms of what I think didn’t work: the romantic relationship he had.
The unexplained noise apparently he was making.
The toilet scenes.
Found it bizarre how he dressed in woman’s clothing.
The church scene

Basically I know I’ve recycling points already made on this thread. The thread has been enlightening in terms of other perspectives but frankly I found the film and the journey itself awful. I wouldn’t like to sit through it again. I like the idea of the cycle of fate and I also like the ghost story idea but I still find it hard to give meaning to the picture even with those theories.