Roman Polanski directs and stars in the 1976 paranoid thriller The Tenant. In the film he plays Trelkovsky, a man who takes over the apartment of a woman who has just recently committed suicide. He is surrounded by odd, creepy neighbors and makes the acquaintance of a friend of the previous tenant, played by a radiantly beautiful Isabelle Adjani. She tries to help Trelkovsky cope with his paranoid fantasies, but there is something about the apartment that is changing him, making him into something new and frightening. Polanski acquits himself well in the lead role but its his direction that really shines, conveying an atmosphere of fear and dread that surrounds everything. The audience is taken on a journey of madness and is kept guessing as to what is real and what is not. The Tenant ranks with the best of Polanski’s thrilling filmography and is a nightmarish must see.
“It’s an exercise in urban paranoia and mental disintegration that echoes or anticipates everything from Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby to Bitter Moon and The Pianist.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice
