There are movies where you need the ending explained to you.

Then there are movies where you need the whole damn thing explained to you.

Then there are movies where you know there is no hope of finding an explanation (yet you fruitlessly search the internet anyway.)

Roman Polanski’s “The Tenant” belongs in the third category.

That said, it’s an interesting watch. Like mixing peyote with cheap wine, I feel everyone should try it once.

What is the story? Well, on the surface, a nebbish man played by Polanski* moves into an apartment building in Paris (where everyone speaks English, which is probably the least weird thing about the whole movie.) The apartment was previously occupied by a woman who committed suicide. Via a series of events, Polanski’s character starts “becoming” the previous tenant.

* It would be a gas if someone used AI to recreate the film but they replace Polanski with Woody Allen.

That’s about all I can give you.

While watching the film, I did get a claustrophobic vibe similar to Polanski’s “Repulsion.” A little research revealed that “The Tenant” is considered part of what is called Polanski’s “Apartment trilogy,” which also includes “Repulsion” and “Rosemary’s Baby”.

It is fertile territory for exploration. I’ve lived in many apartment buildings and marveled at the idea of so many lives—and their coresponding joys, pains and insanities—stacked on top of each other.

I also spied “The Tenant”’s DNA in many films made since. “Watcher” and “Stay” come to mind. I also caught trace of the films that influenced “The Tenant”, like “Rear Window” and “The Trial”.

There is a scene where Polanski’s character, on the precipice of engaging in a sex act he never completes, muses on something I have mused upon: where do “I” exist in my body? Am I in my arms, my legs? Not really, as people can lose those body parts but still be complete in an existential sense. Is it only the head? (There’s a scene in the movie that seems to contemplate that.)

I realize it sounds like I’m babbling, but perhaps that’s fitting for such a film.

Maybe we’re all just babbling.