The Tenant

A 1976 psychological horror film directed by Roman Polanski, who plays Trelkovsky, a tenant who becomes increasingly unsettled by his neighbors and surroundings.

Trelkovsky: The Polish-born clerk in Paris whose growing fear and identification with a former tenant drive The Tenant. His changing behavior anchors the film’s uncertainty about persecution and identity.
The Tenant (novel): A 1964 novel by Roland Topor about a man whose neighbors and apartment contribute to a disturbing identity crisis. Polanski adapted Topor’s premise while reshaping it for the screen.
Isabelle Adjani: A French actress who plays Stella, a woman Trelkovsky meets while visiting Simone Choule in the hospital. Her character offers a fragile counterpoint to Trelkovsky’s isolation and suspicion.
Apartment building: A residential structure divided into separate dwellings that share entrances, walls, and common spaces. The shared building keeps Trelkovsky physically close to the neighbors he fears.
The Tenant ending: The final sequence in which Trelkovsky repeats Simone Choule’s fate and appears to witness the scene from his hospital bed. Its repeated imagery leaves the film’s transformation and reality deliberately unsettled.
Unreliable narrator: A narrator whose account is compromised by limited knowledge, bias, or distorted perception. The film’s close alignment with Trelkovsky makes his perceptions difficult to verify.
Roland Topor: A French artist, writer, and filmmaker whose works often combine grotesque humor with surreal unease. His novel supplied the source story and its claustrophobic social setting.
Melvyn Douglas: An American actor who plays Monsieur Zy, a fellow resident in The Tenant’s apartment building. His measured manner contributes to the building’s atmosphere of uncertain social threat.
Point of view (narrative): The perspective through which a narrative presents events and limits or shapes the audience’s knowledge. The film’s restricted perspective ties its mysteries to Trelkovsky’s changing perceptions.
The Tenant opening sequence: The film’s opening view of an apartment building and its windows, establishing the setting’s watchful atmosphere. The opening frames the building as a place where private life is exposed to observation.

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