The Tenant (1976)

The Tenant (Le locataire)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Gerard Brach and Roman Polanski from a novel by Roland Topor
1976/France/USA
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to Members)
One of 1000 Great Horror Films on They Shoot Zombies Don’t They

Trelkovsky: Simone Choule does not disappoint!

The third of Polanski’s truly creepy psychological horror film involving paranoia in big city apartments does not disappoint.

Trelkovsky (Polanski) is a mild-mannered clerk.  He is looking for an apartment in Paris where they are scarce.  He finally finds one in a run-down building with a shared toilet.  He does not receive a warm welcome from the concierge (Shelly Winters) or the landlord Mr. Zy (Melvyn Douglas).  Two rules are emphasized: any noise after 10 p.m. and women guests are both banned.  The previous tenant, Simone Choule, jumped from the apartment’s window onto a glass skylight below and is currently in the hospital in critical condition.  Many of her possessions remain in the apartment.

Trelkovsky visits Simone in the hospital.  There he meets her friend Stella (Isabelle Adjani).  Simone eventually awakes, lets out an unearthly scream,  and dies.  Trelkovsky invites Stella out for a drink and then to a Bruce Lee movie.  Stella makes advances but Trelkovsky is more preoccupied with the events of the day.

Slowly and steadily, the people he meets treat him as if he were Simone.  He is served her breakfast and only her brand of cigarettes is available to him.  Concurrently, he begins to get in trouble with the landlord and other tenants.  He makes the mistake of bringing some uncouth work colleagues over for a housewarming and things get completely out of hand. He is chastised for this and later is chastised for noise made while his apartment was being burglarized.  Various neighbors try to get his support for getting other tenants evicted. He refuses.  He can see the building’s toilet across the way and it seems to be continuously occupied by people who stand motionless for hours.

As his mental health deteriorates, something compels Trelkovsky to dress up as Simone.  He goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. Finally, he is hallucinating non-stop.  I will stop here.  With Jo Van Fleet as a nosy neighbor and Kedrova as a persecuted one.

Love Douglas’s bat wing coat!

This was the last in Polaski’s informal horror trilogy which begins with Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968).  It is not quite as good as the first two films but holds its own against them.  This is one of those films where the viewer is left to decide whether the hero is actually morphing into his doppleganger (here one of a different sex) or is simply going insane.  Either way, the movie is filled with forboding and the last act is absolutely terrifying. The striking cinematography was done by Bergman regular Sven Nyqvist.