THE STORY – In a dreary, near-future version of Seoul, citizens have become rather soulless as overpopulation, air pollution, and housing costs have reached an all-time high. Like most twenty-somethings, Shin-dong has been dedicating his life to the grind, isolating himself from friends and family in hopes of earning a promotion that comes with a transfer to a new utopian city called Sphere 2. But when his landlord starts threatening eviction, he has no choice but to resort to Wolwolse, a program that allows tenants to rent out parts of their space to other people. Almost immediately, an interested party knocks on the door: a tall, eccentric gentleman and his seemingly mute wife, whom Shin-dong decides to take in despite their unusual request of residing in the bathroom instead of the living room. After all, desperate times call for desperate measures, and they seem agreeable enough… Or so he thought, until their strange behaviours start escalating into a true waking nightmare.
THE CAST – Kim Dae-gun, Heo Dong-won & Park So-hyun
THE TEAM – Yoon Eun-kyoung (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 89 Minutes
Some of the best horror movies have come from South Korea. “The Wailing,” “I Saw the Devil,” and “Train to Busan,” to name a few. But when one thinks of South Korean filmmakers, one especially thinks of Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho. Both have solidified themselves as masters of genre filmmaking – and it’s tough to compete with them in that landscape. With “The Tenants,” however, Yoon Eun-kyoung proves that there is still a lot of rising talent from the country. Yoon feels to have been inspired by Bong in the crafting of this film, which speaks of real-life horrors with a darkly comedic edge. Social inequality is a big theme tackled in Bong’s Best Picture winner, “Parasite,” and it works just as well here. It only emphasizes even more what a grave issue it is in South Korea, but also strums a relatable cord as it’s not isolated to that country alone. “The Tenants” knows how to strike fear by showing us real life. The grim reality of contemporary existence.
“The Tenants” begins on a beach. Well, actually, it’s not a real beach. It’s just a photo of a beach, Shin-dong (Kim Dae-gun), the film’s protagonist, can imagine the sounds of the ocean waves and the seagulls, but he can only do just that – imagine. He’s stuck. He’s stuck living in Seoul with the severely polluted air and deadly cost of living. He’s stuck in the mundanity of life: working, eating, sleeping, and repeating that all over again. He’s chronically fatigued. He is so fatigued that he isolates himself from friends and family. “It’s just not easy,” he says, and most of us can relate. As you type your days away, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to get ahead. If you’ll ever emerge out of a hole of debt and despair. Everything seems pointless. Why are we working ourselves to death if we have nothing to show for it? What’s the point?
What provides Shin-dong with any sense of hope for a better life is moving to the new utopian city called Sphere 2. So much so he starts spending more time at work to deliver results that could put him on the list of candidates to go to the new branch his company is building there. This new position is his chance to get out of his situation, which is made even worse when his landlord threatens eviction. Shin-dong has no choice but to utilize a program allowing tenants to rent out parts of their space to other people. This creates a complex rights relationship that seems to protect renters with a bunch of benefits but, like most systems, is really designed to entrap tenants. This will cause Shin-dong many problems in the long run, but first, he has to deal with his new tenants – and they’re creepy, to say the least.
The couple who comes knocking at his door is comprised of a very tall gentleman (Heo Dong-won) who is framed like a classic villain. In one scene, only the bottom half of his face is in the frame, showing a grin hiding questionable intentions. His wife (Park So-hyun) is equally as unsettling, as she rarely speaks, preferring to smile and nod. It feels like “The Strangers,” but you actually invited them in, and somehow, their real faces are even more terrifying than their masks. The strangest part of Shin-dong’s new arrangement isn’t even the renters themselves, but the fact that the space they want to rent from him is his bathroom. The discomfort he feels over this new living situation is almost palpable, and the strange behaviors of his new roommates begin to turn his life into another kind of waking nightmare.
What makes “The Tenants” excel as a horror film is that it doesn’t rely on the obvious techniques you would expect, like jump scares or an ominous score. It relies on a more realistic approach that focuses on the things that genuinely terrify us about living in modern society. Filmed in black and white, it creates a bleak aesthetic that works wonders to emphasize how the grind has drained us of life. Even the environments that are supposed to bring us comfort, like home, suddenly feel like claustrophobic prisons, keeping us stuck in what feels like an inescapable reality of class disparity. There’s a fantastic display of performances here, especially from Kim, who perfectly captures the anxiety and dread that everyday life seems to bring. The supporting cast of Heo and Park creates such an uneasy atmosphere that works to play up Shin-dong’s ever-increasing descent into paranoia.
Like Shin-dong, we are constantly fighting to reach the top. In his case, the top is a life in Sphere 2. But Sphere 2, much like the “American Dream,” is an illusion. It’s an illusion that makes us work so hard for so long without anything to show for it because the systems in place are only built for the success of the elite and no one else. “They make us live like clones in this zombie-like city until we die.” Will we ever escape?
