Fantasia XXVIII Review: In THE TENANTS, There’s No Scarier Place Like Home
3 min. read
Yoon Eun-kyoung’s The Tenants wasn’t in my curtain raiser for this year’s Fantasia Festival. The programming notes were certainly enough to garner my interest given the nod to the stylings of Bong Joon-ho via hit drama, Parasite in all its glory, so I had to check it out.
The film is shot entirely black and white which is a challenge for me whenever it comes to the lighting in certain scenes. It’s also an issue when coupled with the pacing at times as the story moves very slow for most of the way and doesn’t really pick up until well into the first hour as the characters really begin developing.
What helps though is Yoon’s vision, and seeing it executed in all its nuances and messaging, culminating the story surrounding our protagonist, Shin-dong (Kim Dea-gon) whose latest goings-on take a turn for the worse, but not before the weird. He tirelessly works a cubicle for a corporate meat company in hopes of a promotion that could land him a chance to relocate from his smog-filled city to a cleaner one with better housing. When his landlord threatens to kick him out, Shin-dong takes up advice from a friend and decides to sublet a space in his home to a willing tenant.
What should have been a normal, albeit tenuous partnership turns into something unsubtly bewildering after Shin-dong and his eccentric new tenants – a married couple (Heo Dong-won and Park So-hyun) – move in. Oddities emerge, boundaries are crossed, Shin-dong is getting damn near choked out of a misunderstanding, and the boundaries between the real and supernatural begin to blur so much so that he goes to a doctor thinking he’s diagnosed with some kind of whatever. Before he knows it, Shin-dong’s truest test of his psyche will bring one of the sharpest third-act twists you’ll ever see in a story of this kind, so much so that even you’ll wonder if you were just dreaming it all.
Maybe that’s at least one effect Yoon’s The Tenants has intended for its viewers. Its underscoring of economic and societal pressures coupled with sprinkles of otherworldly horrors makes it a discernible, intriguing watch for anyone with an eye for genre-bending cinema. Yoon’s characterizations in the film are fun to watch too, particularly with Shin-dong’s phone conversations with a friend, as well as the jejune landlord he so calls “Mr. Bastard”.
Yoon’s eye for horror is also complimentary, invoking a controlled and aptly-crafted touch in core moments that brilliantly put Shin-dong right in the thick of things. It’s a pretty slick exposition and build-up of things right until the end, and I have expected that the final shot would see the film in color for creative purposes. Indeed and right down to the final shot, the color choice sticks and all the more definitely suits the film’s atmosphere and overall delivery.
The Tenants is an award-winning pic, and rightfully so. If a story set in dystopic suspense, and told through of lens of increasing, almost-paranormal insanity with a tangible message that pertinently relates is something you’re into, Yoon’s film should make you feel right at home.
The Tenants was reviewed for the 28th Fantasia International Film Festival which runs from July 18 through August 4.
