"You know, there is something odd going on in my building..."
If you know only The Ninth Gate or The Pianist from Polanski, it's better to start to watch his early movies. Because they are much much 'better'.
What 'better' means? For me the unbelievable ability to build up atmosphere. Polanski's Repulsion (my personal favourite from him: 10/10), or Rosemary's Baby (2nd fav.: 9/10. btw the worst news of the week is here) has something what cannot find easily in other movies. You need to know the early De Palma's or Roeg's films to understand what I am talking abo
ut. This ominous, cryptic mood around their narratives shaped the thrillers in the best years of American filmmaking which was definitely the seventies. Today's horrors' digitally sterile pictures and predictible flicks are far behind these masterpieces's frightful diegetic worlds.
What's their speciality? Just listen this observation of the protagonist:
"I found a tooth in my apartement. In a hole. Wrapped in a cotton wool."
What? I mean what a morbid baffling situation!
Ow, and what is the film about? I wouldn't dare to spoil your excitement, so here is the starting point of the story: Trelkovsky, the timid but curious (just you and me, right?) everyman (played by Polanski himself) is applying for an apartment in a dark, mysterious block of flats in Paris. Monsieur Zy, the owner tells him that the previous tenant, Simone Choule jumped out from the window, now she is in a hospital. Zy can't rent out the apartment until she is alive...
Don't let yourself mislead by these three dots. The story is much (much) more sick than you would think now:)) (Lynch learned a lot from Polanski, I mean it. Just check out one of the last scenes when the old people approaching the wounded Trelkovsky. The mysterious old couple from the Mulholland Drive is a relative of these scary ones...)
Anyway, The Tenant (atmospherically photographed by Bergman's Sven Nykvist..) is a definite must see, even if I could give only 8 points, according to the earlier mentioned favourites from Polanski.
"If you cut off my head, what would I say... Me and my head, or me and my body? What right has my head to call itself me?"
8/10
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