Polanski casts himself in the role of a Polish office clerk working in Paris who sets up residence in a new apartment, only to find the elderly tenants of the building inexplicably hostile toward him. After discovering that the previous renter, a woman, had hurled herself out a window, he becomes obsessed with unearthing her story and increasingly convinced his neighbors are trying to kill him. At once terrifying and funny, the film asks us to ponder whether he is experiencing a mysterious, Kafkaesque persecution or is simply stark raving mad. Nykvist’s contribution to this psychological thriller is rendered through its stunning visual realization.