Tenant, The (4K UHD Review)

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
• Review Date: Dec 23, 2024
• Format: 4K Ultra HD
• 

Director

Roman Polanski

Release Date(s)

1976 (November 26, 2024)

Studio(s)

Marianne Productions/Paramount Pictures (Vinegar Syndrome)

• Film/Program Grade: B
• Video Grade: A-
• Audio Grade: B+
• Extras Grade: A-

Review

Roman Polanski’s work has often been marked by an impishly perverse quality that should come as no surprise, given his own undeniably perverse nature—as at least one victim discovered, much to her dismay. Ironically enough, while he has long denied any accusations against him, he seems to recognize his own inherent impishness, casting himself in key roles for his most blackly comic films. Even when dealing with nominally serious subject matter like Chinatown, he still gave himself an unforgettable cameo as, well, a perverse little imp with a knife. Yet with openly comic subject matter like The Fearless Vampire Killers, Polanski has been bold enough to take on leading roles, so the fact that he’s front and center for the entirety of his 1976 film The Tenant speaks volumes regarding his approach to adapting Roland Topor’s 1974 novel of the same name. In many ways, The Tenant remains one of his most impishly perverse films, and the blackest of all his black comedies. Yes, it’s still a psychological thriller, but Polanski’s take on the material can’t be read at face value.

The Tenant stars Polanski as Trelkovsky, a socially awkward and reserved man who inadvertently seals his fate once he rents out an apartment in Paris. The previous tenant, an Egyptologist named Simone Choule (Dominique Poulange), had attempted suicide by throwing herself out the window into the courtyard below, a fact that the building’s concierge (Shelley Winters) is only too happy to explain to him. Trelkovsky becomes obsessed with Simone, so he tracks her down at the hospital where she’s essentially been mummified by being put into head-to-toe traction. There, he meets Simone’s friend Stella (Isabelle Adjani) and starts a relationship with her by pretending to be another one of Simone’s friends. Yet that kind of roleplaying will come back to haunt him, as increasingly strange occurrences at the apartment building cause him to question his own sanity—and identity. The Tenant also stars Melvyn Douglas, Jo Van Fleet, and Bernard Fresson.

In his seminal 1986 anthology Guide for the Film Fanatic, Danny Peary described the film Performance as feeling like co-directors Nicholas Roeg and Donald Cammell were “resting their dirtiest fingers at the back of our throats.” That’s an apt metaphor for The Tenant as well, only in this case, Roman Polanski is resting his most perverse fingers at the back of our throats. The Tenant is an exercise in making viewers uncomfortable, which is entirely appropriate, because Trelkovsky is a man who’s uncomfortable with his surroundings and he’s even uncomfortable inside of his own skin. He’s a Polish expatriate living in France who still feels like an outsider, and he’s paranoid about being the recipient of disapprobation from those around him. He feels like he’s the victim of the odd activities going on within the apartment complex, and yet he’s far more concerned about anyone thinking that he’s actually the one responsible. While he doesn’t necessarily seek their approval, he’s petrified about the possibility of being the subject of their disapproval.

Trelkovsky wonders if the perverse activities in the building are the result of his fellow residents trying to push him toward becoming another Simone, in the hopes that he’ll also try to kill himself. Yet he was obsessed with Simone entirely of his own accord, long before any of the strange incidents in the building started happening, and he began playing different roles at the same time. He’s already confused about his own identity, and whether there’s anything tangible happening at the complex or else it’s all just a manifestation of his own neuroses remains an open question in The Tenant. Either way, just like in Polanski’s Repulsion, his mind falls apart as his apartment starts to fall apart around him, requiring a more radical process of transformation.

In a perverse way (naturally), The Tenant is about the process of Becoming as defined by Thomas Harris in Red Dragon—only in this case, it’s not clear who is responsible for Trelkovsky’s ultimate desire to become something else. Regardless, he was never comfortable living inside his own skin—at one point, he asks Stella to tell him “at what precise moment does an individual stop being who he thinks he is?” Yet it’s not clear if he ever was who he thought that he was, or indeed if he ever had a clear sense of identity in the first place. He always let himself be defined by how others felt about him. To truly become something different, he must go through a process of metamorphosis as in The Silence of the Lambs, which requires spending some time inside of a cocoon. That’s precisely where he finds himself at the end of The Tenant, though as the final shot makes clear, he still isn’t comfortable with what he’s Becoming. Instead, he’s being plunged back into his own nightmare by having others define his identity instead of discovering one of his own. In the most perverse twist of all, there’s never really been a Trelkovsky, and there may never be one again, either.

Cinematographer Sven Nykvist shot The Tenant on 35mm film using Panavision cameras with spherical lenses, framed at 1.85:1 (although it’s likely that the European release was matted to 1.66:1 instead). This version is based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative (presumably done by Paramount), digitally cleaned up and graded for High Dynamic Range in both Dolby Vision and HDR10. There’s some damage visible during the opening Paramount logos that’s been left alone, but the rest of the film is virtually spotless aside from a small hair or two at the bottom edge of the frame. The grain field looks even and smooth throughout, no doubt aided by a robust encode on a BD-100 disc. While the image doesn’t offer the last word in fine detail, the expanded contrast from the HDR grade provides some real depth to the shadows, increasing the perception of detail across the spectrum. The color balance is excellent, with natural-looking flesh tones that never dip into the red push that mars some Vinegar Syndrome HDR grades. It’s a beautiful 4K presentation, easily trumping the previous Blu-ray version from Shout! Factory.

Audio is offered in English and French 1.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional English SDH subtitles. It’s a relatively clean track, although the limited dynamic range means that it occasionally pushes to the edge of distortion during louder moments—there’s only so much headroom available. The dialogue is clear, with much of it sounding post-synced even in English. Philippe Sarde’s score is reproduced reasonably well despite any minor issues with fidelity.

The Vinegar Syndrome 4K Ultra HD release of The Tenant is a two-disc set that includes a Blu-ray with a 1080p copies of the film. The insert is reversible, featuring alternate artwork on each side. There’s also a deluxe magnet window box/slipcover combo designed by Vlad Rodriguez that’s available directly from Vinegar Syndrome, limited to 8,000 units. That version also offers a 40-page booklet featuring essays by Patrick Dahl, Veronica Fitzpatrick, and Willow Catelyn Maclay. The following extras are included, all of them in HD:

DISC ONE: UHD

• Audio Commentary with Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson

DISC TWO: BD

• Audio Commentary with Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson
• Paranoid in Paris (22:38)
• Waiting for The Tenant (16:29)
• Room to Let (22:24)
• The Invisible Performer (15:26)
• Keeping Continuity (5:05)
• Audio Interview with Roland Topor (6:10)
• Audio Interview with Gérard Brach (4:34)
• A Visit to the Locations of The Tenant (11:02)
• Original Trailer (1:11)
• Video Essay by Samm Deighan (20:20)

The commentary with Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson was originally recorded for Shout! Factory’s 2020 Blu-ray release of The Tenant. They both say that it’s one of their favorite films and how thrilled that they were for it finally to be released on Blu-ray in the United States (I’m sure that they never imagined it would make the leap to 4K a few years later). They discus various details about the production including the cast and crew, and explore the film’s themes as well. They note how the stylized theatricality supports the way that it’s all clearly Trelkovsky’s delusion—The Tenant is bravura filmmaking.

The rest of the extras consist of various interviews, a location featurette, and a video essay. Most of them were also produced for Shout! Factory’s release of The Tenant, but Vinegar Syndrome has added two new interviews as well. Waiting for The Tenant is with actor André Penvern, who played the waiter at the café. He reminisces about his life, career, and experiences working with Polanski on the film. He calls the world that Topor created scary but authentic. Room to Let is with musician and author Stephen Thrower, who explores the complicated history behind the making of The Tenant (it started out at Universal with Jack Clayton slated to direct) and where it fits into Roman Polanski’s filmography—including the themes of paranoia, which was already old hat for Polanski at that point. He offers some comparisons between the book and the film, including the way that Polanski adapted Topor’s literary metaphors into visual ones.

The archival extras kick off with Paranoid in Paris, which is an interview with Polanski. The director opens by explaining how he always felt that The Tenant was a comedy, and that’s why he cast himself in the lead role. From there, he talks about his experiences working with Paramount and how that led to him adapting Topor’s book for them. He notes his personal connections to Paris (well, outside of the whole exile thing, anyway) and how that informed the making of The Tenant. He also discusses the cast, crew, and various details about the production including, his use of a Louma crane and why he chose to have Enter the Dragon playing during the film.

There are two crew interviews as well. The Invisible Performer is with assistant cameraperson François Catonné, who gives all due deference to Sven Nykvist before explaining the challenges of shooting The Tenant. He says that the essence of cinema is creation, and while The Tenant was an exceptional moment of cinematic creation using the analogue tools of the day, Polanski’s leap into digital doesn’t change the fact that his modern works are still unmistakably Roman Polanski films. Keeping Continuity is an interview with script supervisor Sylvette Baudrot, who says that despite Polanski’s precision, she still had to remind him repeatedly about details that he kept forgetting.

There are also two audio-only interviews. The first is with Roland Topor (misspelled as Topar in the description), recorded by journalist Frédéric Levy, who interviewed the author for an article in Lumière magazine. It’s a poor-quality Dictaphone recording, but it’s an invaluable record of Topor’s thoughts about the book and the film. (He died in 1997.) The second is with Gérard Brach, once again by Levy, this time for Starfix magazine in 1986. Brach died n 2006, so once again it’s an important record of his feelings about working with Polanski.

A Visit to the Locations of The Tenant is a location featurette with David Gregory of Severin Films. Gregory talks about how The Tenant is considered to be the third film in Polanski’s “apartment trilogy,” but he also feels that it’s the first film in the director’s “dirty Paris” trilogy. Gregory takes a tour through Paris and shows how the locations look now compared to how they appeared in the film. Last but not least, there’s a Video Essay by author and film historian Samm Deighan, who explains where The Tenant fits into Polanski’s apartment trilogy, as well as its relationship to the Gothic genre and themes of paranoia and transformation. She also compares passages from the novel to how the sequences play out in the film.

That’s all of the previously available extras plus two new ones, and a stellar new 4K presentation of the film to boot. What more could anyone want? The Tenant still won’t be for all tastes, but for adventurous viewers, Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K release is well worth a look. For ardent Roman Polanski fans, it’s the only way to fly. It’s Beautiful. Adorable. Goddess. Divine. Divine!

- Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).