Normally a great fan of Roman Polanski's work, I must confess that I just didn't get The Tenant. The story details a Pole living in Paris taking over the apartment of a woman who jumped out of the window of said apartment. The apartment has some strange power in it and quickly transforms the new tenant's life for the worse...in fact things literally fall apart for him. Polanski plays the Pole and does a serviceable job. I always thought he was a pretty decent actor. The people living in the apartment building are equally good and bizarre with Shelley Winters standing out as the concierge. Polanski also does a rather deft job behind the camera creating tension and a foreboding feeling in many scenes. What then is the problem? It has to be the weird script which hints at story lines and never really explains any of the action, particularly the ending. I just didn't buy the outcome. Why did it happen? Why was there a tooth in the wall(an effective scene if not an unexplained one)? I can't go into to much detail about the fate that befalls Polanski's character, but it seems to come out of nowhere. I know this film is revered by many as one of the great horror films of all time. I never was scared by anything except the convoluted plot being taken seriously. Maybe the film is trying to be too enigmatic and symbolic. I don't know, but what I do know is The Tenant left me with an unsatisfied feeling. It certainly isn't a bad film, but I didn't think it was great either. There were large tracts within that were just plain boring, and though Polanski is definitely one of the greatest directors of all time - he can and has been guilty of downplaying scenes too much. I can say the same for some of the scenes in Repulsion. I also believe that this film needs to be seen more than once, but I will definitely have to work up to that chore another time. As with much of Polanski's work, there is a dose of black humour laced throughout. I really enjoyed the scenes of Polanski's character seeing the woman who jumped out of the window in hospital almost completely covered with bandages. He visits not for concern for the girl but with hopes that she will die and he will land her apartment. These scenes are underlined with a very dark, amusing edge and an appropriate irony to the film's denouement.

THE TENANT comes as a dark and spellbinding surprise for a viewer who previously encountered Roman Polanski's REPULSION and found it somewhat overrated. THE TENANT has a similar feel, setting, and unnerving atmosphere to it, but it turns out to be much closer to the kind of film that I love to watch. It's a slow-burning suspense story all about the atmosphere and psychology of the situation, the kind of tale where you're never quite sure whether the protagonist is going mad or if there is indeed a conspiracy plot against him. Polanski does some very strong work here, both as director and as the everyman protagonist, playing an essential cypher for the viewer. There are some stark and violent moments but this is mainly about an evocation of unease, of the mildly sinister, and I found it worked a treat.

Trelkovsky (Roman Polanski) is a meek bureaucrat in Paris. He rents an apartment whose previous tenant Egyptologist Simone Choule jumped out the window. She goes to the hospital to find Stella (Isabelle Adjani) with her friend Simone completely bandaged. His neighbor complains about his noisy party. There are strange things happening and he's getting paranoid about the other people in the building.

There is a nice sense of impending doom. The whole movie is a series of slightly off situations. It feels Kafkaesque. Roman Polanski is not a good enough actor to bring out that intense paranoia or that disturbed frustration. The movie does ramble around and it needs a more compelling lead to take charge. It goes off in some maddening avenues. I actually don't like the dueling point of views between the real world and his perception. It would be better to stay only with his surreal visions until the final scenes.