The Tenant (1976)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Trelkovsky	Roman Polanski	½
Stella	Isabelle Adjani
Monsieur Zy	Melvyn Douglas	½
Madame Dioz	Jo Van Fleet	½
Scope	Bernard Fresson	½
Georges Badar	Rufus	-
The Concierge	Shelley Winters	½
Madame Gaderian	Lila Kedrova	-
Robert	Patrice Alexsandre	-
Simon	Romain Bouteille	-
Viviane	Josiane Balasko	-
Husband at the accident	Claude Dauphin	-
Neighbor	Claude Pieplu	-
Cafe Owner	Jacques Monod	-
Bettina, Mme Gaderian's daughter	Eva Ionesco	-
Neighbour	Albert Delpy	-

Review

The third and final film in Roman Polanski's so-called "Apartment trilogy" (not his own moniker), after Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, is in many ways also the most creative and cryptic. This is the only one of his films in which he plays the lead himself, and the reason may be simple: Of all Polanski's characters, Trelkovsky is arguably the one who is most like him. He is half Polish, half French, has a somewhat indeterminable presence, and harbours some unseen demons of equivocal quality and intensity.

The Tenant begins as a temperate mystery drama, then fiddles into a romantic subplot before plummeting deep into psychological territory. The validity of the latter shall remain undiscussed here, but artistically and metaphorically this is ingenious work. The film has so many facets and invites so many readings that it stays with you far past its running time. One particularly effective scene is the penultimate one, which is delightfully conducted, like Hitchcock meeting The Muppet Show.

And Polanski, with his smouldering lead performance and playful, teasing direction, knows exactly what he's doing. One of his clever tricks here is making the apartment itself the main antagonist – making it "one of them", luring Trelkovsky into externalizing an abundance of social commentary. The apartment represents what Trelkovsky cannot escape. And thus he becomes what he's always feared becoming: foreign in his own life and being.