The Tenant 4K 1976

It is difficult to write about the masterpiece, as no words are worthy of it. The author of The Tenant was driven, but who were they? Who are you, the drivers?

A Guide to Schizophrenia. An existential parable, a mystical study wrapped in Dostoevsky's rags. An apartment saga that revealed a gaping secret bottom.

There were only two moments when watching the movie raised the hairs on my head. One of them was in “Angel Heart.” The other was in “The Tenant.” They were dry crystals of fear. You can, of course, cringe at the sight of a cretin running around with a chainsaw. But, frankly, it's not very scary. You can run away from a moron, you can kick him in the face. There's a chance to find a miracle serum for viruses brought back from outer space. War movies are scary, but there is always hope for victory.

But the scene where Mr. Trelkovsky tries on a wig...

Horror and despair, endless and irrevocable. The collapse of the mental piles. A hell set up without a Last Judgment, in broad daylight. Here and now. You can't beat it with a baseball bat. Abandon all hope, whoever gets in here.

What part of the body is a man?

He's shallow, this Trelkowski, he's not sympathetic, he rubs his hands together when he finds out the previous tenant will die, because he'll be freeing up a vacant apartment. But somehow you empathize with him. Why, really? No need to be hypocritical, you know exactly why.

What is this tale of Egyptian signs, doppelgangers, nightmarish surrealist insertions and a small, unremarkable servant in the semi-darkness of a stairwell? A metaphrase of Dostoevsky's texts? The disintegration of individuality as social flows through it, embodied in allegorical figures? The life-description of man on earth? The course of mental illness? The phantasmagoria of the prodigal Pole?

An ending that loops the story in an eerie circle.

Man is easily destroyed. Who are you to judge him? Society, a combination of genes, a set of accidents? Those who killed his family, replaced toys with toy shootings; brought drugs, unseen losses and unhealthy pleasures.

Oh, yes, he's guilty. Because he's doomed.