Perhaps Polanski was going for an analysis on our living spaces and what it means to pay for property--a place in the world to be safe from all outside menaces that may threaten us only to have that very space become a new hazard in itself. That sort of cautionary wisdom certainly came through, to me anyway, as I was watching THE TENANT.
As a homeowner, I remember the blissfully satisfied feeling I had walking into the home for the first time after the closing--much like Polanski in the lead role aptly communicated after his successful negotiation of the property he would now be renting--everything is exciting when you have a new place to call your own. You walk through the door with a little more bounce knowing that nothing is on the other side but your own oasis and it becomes an exciting aspect of your independent life to invite people over for drinks and music knowing you're not under anyone else's thumb, until of course, you are.
Then there's what sets in once the newness fades and you encounter the everyday realities of inhabiting your formerly new and exiting space. You have to take the trash out and you may drop banana peels or whatever else on the stairs as you take it out. Your neighbors begin to complain that you're making too much noise--your music is too loud or the friends you invite over are raucous and someone's on the other side of your door making you feel like the most inconsiderate person to ever exist while your one loudmouth friend is making it all the worse by making fun of the neighbor while they are complaining to you. Polanski really nails the feeling of being bound by the complexities of human relationships and the nicety that entails while also maintaining your social position. The suffocating feeling of being required to act a certain way depending on who it is you're interacting with and the tediousness with which we negotiate our autonomy while remaining actors in the world with others.
There's never really a time we can relax when taking part in humanity as we've created it. Those around us, especially those with whom we share space, make constant demands on us that sound like well-mannered requests or make assertions on our entire being based on one noisy night or a single oversight in common space. One can easily be debilitated by the tightrope walk between living as they wish and maintaining a cordiality in the face of such guised rudeness. Even if you are a considerate person, as Polanski's Trelkovsky, whom we see look after the common space he shares with the other tenants in his building and open himself and his living space to his neighbors in distress, that won't stop the other half of the building from thinking that he is an uncaring parasite whose mere existence is an obstruction.
This overwhelming feeling of living life microscopically with your moves being tracked by whichever of your many neighbors is looking out the window at that particular moment ready to make judgements about your character based on whatever they see can easily lead one to paranoia and Polanski's take on that paranoia is interestingly handled in THE TENANT. The best parts of the film lie in the first section, when these charges against humanity are made more subtly and interestingly before all of the eggs are thrown into the obsession basket Trelkovsky has over his apartment's past tenant. Though I don't do it here, it would be interesting to parse out what this film has to say about the previous occupants of a place and what energy the walls of a space carry with them and bring into the life of each successive owner. The script is brilliant with cinematography that becomes increasingly more claustrophobic allowing the film's commentary on pressures of living with others and their constant watching of our lives really come alive. This really is the best kind of psychological horror with emphasis on the isolating reality of human existence I was hoping to encounter throughout this project.
As a homeowner, I remember the blissfully satisfied feeling I had walking into the home for the first time after the closing--much like Polanski in the lead role aptly communicated after his successful negotiation of the property he would now be renting--everything is exciting when you have a new place to call your own. You walk through the door with a little more bounce knowing that nothing is on the other side but your own oasis and it becomes an exciting aspect of your independent life to invite people over for drinks and music knowing you're not under anyone else's thumb, until of course, you are.
Then there's what sets in once the newness fades and you encounter the everyday realities of inhabiting your formerly new and exiting space. You have to take the trash out and you may drop banana peels or whatever else on the stairs as you take it out. Your neighbors begin to complain that you're making too much noise--your music is too loud or the friends you invite over are raucous and someone's on the other side of your door making you feel like the most inconsiderate person to ever exist while your one loudmouth friend is making it all the worse by making fun of the neighbor while they are complaining to you. Polanski really nails the feeling of being bound by the complexities of human relationships and the nicety that entails while also maintaining your social position. The suffocating feeling of being required to act a certain way depending on who it is you're interacting with and the tediousness with which we negotiate our autonomy while remaining actors in the world with others.
There's never really a time we can relax when taking part in humanity as we've created it. Those around us, especially those with whom we share space, make constant demands on us that sound like well-mannered requests or make assertions on our entire being based on one noisy night or a single oversight in common space. One can easily be debilitated by the tightrope walk between living as they wish and maintaining a cordiality in the face of such guised rudeness. Even if you are a considerate person, as Polanski's Trelkovsky, whom we see look after the common space he shares with the other tenants in his building and open himself and his living space to his neighbors in distress, that won't stop the other half of the building from thinking that he is an uncaring parasite whose mere existence is an obstruction.
This overwhelming feeling of living life microscopically with your moves being tracked by whichever of your many neighbors is looking out the window at that particular moment ready to make judgements about your character based on whatever they see can easily lead one to paranoia and Polanski's take on that paranoia is interestingly handled in THE TENANT. The best parts of the film lie in the first section, when these charges against humanity are made more subtly and interestingly before all of the eggs are thrown into the obsession basket Trelkovsky has over his apartment's past tenant. Though I don't do it here, it would be interesting to parse out what this film has to say about the previous occupants of a place and what energy the walls of a space carry with them and bring into the life of each successive owner. The script is brilliant with cinematography that becomes increasingly more claustrophobic allowing the film's commentary on pressures of living with others and their constant watching of our lives really come alive. This really is the best kind of psychological horror with emphasis on the isolating reality of human existence I was hoping to encounter throughout this project.