The Tenant

Based on the novel by Richard Topor, “The Tenant” is a psychological horror film by Roman Polanski which can also be read as a deeply disturbed personal work about a man’s disintegration in the face of death and tragedy. (There are obvious parallels to be drawn by the mental disintegration of the film’s main character, Trelkovsky - played by Polanski himself - to the crisis suffered by the director when his wife and unborn child were brutally slaughtered by the infamous Charles Manson cult). Polanski’s work from the beginning of his career has seen him play mischievously and surrealistically with the themes of mental illness, hauntings and transvestitism, but in “The Tenant”, the whole world which Trelkovsky inhabits seems to be riddled with varying degrees of evil and repressed violence. He is a new tenant in an old Baroque Parisian hotel and the last occupant in his room attempted suicide by jumping from the building. Trelkovsky meets her on the day of her death: the memory of her anguished screaming will reverberate with him for the rest of his life. The cast includes Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters and Lila Kedrova, and the sombre lighting and cinematography is by noted Swedish cinematographer, Sven Nykvist. As always, Polanski proves an effective and imaginative master of the horror genre. Note: “The Tenant” is a USA/French co-production in which the French actors are dubbed into English.