Several times in the movie the Polanski character is questioned about his nationality and has to keep saying that although he is from Poland, he's a French citizen. Maybe this is the key to the film : Racism ? The identity problems seem to stem out of this. Everyone is hostile to him because he's not French. His friends in the film are all ex-patriots (or at least in the English language version they have American accents. Maybe i'm reading too much into that). I just can't think of anything else in the film that offers any explanation to the Polanski characters identity problems. If Polanski's own life is anything to go by, shuttling around the world for work : Poland, UK, USA, France, then perhaps the race thing has some validity.
Review of The Tenant
