Polanski’s “The Tenant” (1976): Kafka, Insanity and Loss of Identity.

This is truly Kafkaesque (perhaps because I just recently reread both “The Castle” and “The Process”) psychological thriller refers to Polanski’s apartment trilogy, which also includes the films “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Repusion”.

“The Tenant” incorporates the best elements of the genre. It is full of ambiguous intersections with people, strange finds and coincidences, the reasons for meeting with which are never answered, although there is a feeling that the answer is somewhere right in front of your eyes. Believe me, this is really destabilizing and alarming even through the screen. Even half a century later.

From Kafka there really is a lot. I would also add that at first the plot unfolds in the canvas of an existential novel, but then confidently turns into Kafkaesque. As in them, in this movie, anxiety is concentrated at the same time and everywhere and nowhere but the little things. A very strange feeling. A special dimension of the threat: It comes slowly, silently, without witnesses, but at one point it already keeps you so strong in your power that it is impossible to move.

And how strange it is to watch a film set in Paris, and all the characters speak English. Not a single French word. I won’t deny, this also created a certain sense of anxiety and irreality for me.

The moment of continuity is also interesting. Right, we are used to admiring heroes who overpower themselves, rebuff the system and break the vicious circle. This is in all genres, from fantasy to melodramas, but this is absolutely not in the “Tenant.” It is difficult to say at what moment the main character breaks under oppression. We want to believe in his salvation, brave with him and believe to the end that everything will be fine. But in fact, from the very beginning we guess that he will definitely break, like many others before him.

And again, Polanski raises the topic of personality, squeezed within the framework of strict supervision from the outside, without giving a clear answer to what happened after all.

Did Mr. Trelkowsky want to get used to the role of Simone in order to better understand the causes of her death, or is it just madness that blossomed against the background of stress? Is this the curse of a big city that will overtake every stranger? Or do we carry this curse within ourselves, passing it on to our “neighbor”? And of course, over all of them there is an eternal question: who is insane, the world around or myself in relation to this world?