I was watching other videos on YouTube when I suddenly noticed that the movie The Tenant was available. I haven’t watched it in a while because it hasn’t been on the independent channel for a long time.
The Tenant is a psychological thriller/mystery directed by Roman Polanski, written by Roman Polanski and Gerard Brach, and produced by Andrew Braunsberg. It stars Roman Polanski as the main character, as well as Shelley Winters, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, Bernard Fresson, Lila Kedrova, and Claude Dauphin. The story takes place in France. This movie was based on a 1964 novel, The Tenant, written by Roland Topor. This movie, The Tenant, is Polanski third movie in his Apartment Trilogy, after Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby. Rosemary’s Baby was based on an Ira Levin novel, and Roman Polanski had made that movie exactly like the novel, including verbatim with the novel. But unfortunately the movie was too long for the industry, and they asked Polanski to cut scenes in order to shorten the movie. I wish I could watch the whole uncut Rosemary’s Baby film somewhere.
The Tenant movie review: A masterclass in atmospheric dread, The Tenant traps viewers in a suffocating world of suspicion and surreal horror. Polanski blurs identity and reality with unsettling precision.
Anyway, back to The Tenant film. It is about a young man who enters an apartment building to rent a recently available room The concierge shows him the room, before telling him that the previous tenant is at the hospital, suffering from a coma. Before renting the room, he states that the previous tenant might wake up from the coma and return to her apartment. The concierge assures him that Simone won’t make it alive. He also needs to discuss the rent amount with the landlord, Monsieur Zy. He also is told that he has to share the bathroom with the other tenants because the rooms don’t have their own bathroom. After persuading the landlord to lower the rent, he goes to the hospital, pretending to be Simone’s friend, to inquire about her condition. She is bandaged up from head to toe, like a mummy, and she has woken up from her coma. I notice that she has one tooth missing. He meets a young woman who has stopped by to see Simone. When she talks to Simone, Simone gives out a loud, agonizing groan.
When he finds out that Simone has died, he immediately moves into her furnished apartment. As he looks through the messy apartment, he notices some odd clues about the previous tenant. He checks out her clothes and belongings. It is like Simone’s ghost is haunting him with her abandoned remnants.
He meets the other tenants, who look and act nosily eerie, similar to the tenants in the Rosemary’s Baby apartment building. He makes some friends and he becomes close to Stella. I also noticed that this main character, Trelkovsky, is similar to the character Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby.
Maintenance workers are fixing the broken area where Simone jumped out from her window and landed upon. Every time he looks out his window, he notices someone standing in the bathroom, with the lights on, and staring back at him with a dark, brooding expression. He notices a hole in his apartment wall, and a tooth is hidden inside.
As he lives his life, he starts to take on Simone’s identity. He goes into the café and ends up drinking hot chocolate as well as smoking her brand of cigarettes because the café never has his brand. It is like the people in the cafe are pushing him to consume the same drinks and cigarettes as Simone’s preference.
He returns home and has urges to dress up in Simone’s dress, high-heel shoes, and makeup. He even buys a wig and paints his fingernails. Although he is mostly quiet, tenants complain of issues with him that he isn’t even aware of because he doesn’t really know any of them. Tenants show up at his door to complain about something. He politely turns them away. As he learns more about Simone, he appears to be assuming her identity. Two female tenants do witchcraft on him to strangle him, and he goes crazy. He watches a satanic ritual outside, which involves a female tenant and her crippled young daughter. The tenants often encourage him to jump out of his window, similar to Simone, but their windows appear to be similar to a theatrical auditorium seats, with balconies and red curtains.
As he runs in the street to escape his thoughts, he runs into more eerie people. Reptilians are chasing him in his apartment building, making him go crazy. He goes to Stella’s apartment because he trusts her and he doesn’t want to be alone. He stays overnight at her apartment. After Stella goes to work in the morning, the landlord arrives at her door, nosily inquiring about people in the apartment. Trelkovsky remains quiet. He browses through Stella’s photo album, realizing they are all a part of the same cult, working together to drive him crazy until he commits suicide. He eventually jumps out of his window, and he appears to have survived. But when he jumps out again, he ends up in the hospital, bandaged up like a mummy, similar to Simone, and he also has a front tooth missing. He screams the same agonizing groan, as he lays on his hospital bed, the exact same bed that Simone slept on. It is like a cycle of a sacrifice ritual.
