Hmmm. Not sure about this one. Polanski returns to a familiar well here, another variation on his earlier Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby. It’s weird and uncomfortable and slow as it plays out. The ending, though? I like Twilight Zone kinds of endings. This one seems just a bit of a step too far.
Trelkovsky (Polanski) is looking for a new apartment in Paris. Apparently hard to come by, at the time. Despite the shittiness of the apartment itself and the extenuating circumstances under which it became open (a woman who suicided from the window), he is happy to get it once things, uhm, come to pass. Polite and extremely timid, he takes the rather crappy terms in stride. But the whole situation is suppressive once he moves in. Probably doesn’t help he has a bunch of asshole friends/co-workers. Then things ... start getting a bit weird.
Normally I have a decent avenue how to approach a film. This one is a bit too off. And this is after watching Possession, also starring Isabelle Adjani. But it’s like Rosemary’s Baby with Polanski playing Rosemary but there’s an obvious discrepancy there, so… I guess some kernels of a good idea here but it kinda Stephen-Kings the ending. And that’s one shitty bed to wake up in. One shitty, cursed bed of haunted lamps and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
