such a nice reaction to that baby!!! i felt that i love polanski when he slapped that little boy who was crying in the park for his stupid boat !!!!!!!!!!
anybody feel the way i do ?!???
I would never do it myself, but i LOVE the way he slapped that crying brat.
It's war
It was almost as good as when Donald Sutherland stomped that annoying brat to death at the end of The Day Of The Locust
You'll forgive me if I don't stay around to watch. I just can't cope with the freaky stuff.
HELL YES! terrific moment. wish i'd the courage to do it myself.
shareWhen I first saw this movie I was hungover and feeling a bit sentimental. I really thought Polanski was going to hitch up his pants and kindly retrieve the boat from the lake in a true show of philanthropism. Instead, he gives the kid a good slap round the chops! Genius!
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I hope you people don't have children (at the time you wrote your posts I mean... or that you change your mind about the scene before you do).
No dice, Pearl.
I have a six year old boy, and I think the scene is howlingly, thigh-smackingly hilarious. I think I'll go slap him now. }:-D
By which of course I mean to say that your fear that laughing at a scene in a movie means that you'd laugh at a similar event in actual life is absurd. What an ugly sentence I just wrote.
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Somehow it seems a very typically "Polanskian" moment. Creepy, ridiculous & hilarious at the same time. Reeks of his handwriting (although I don´t remember what exactly my initial reaction was when I saw it the first time around). Unpredictable, sure. Gotta love it.
shareI think it resonates with so many people because we've all wished slapping annoying, noisy brats at some point in our lives. I read a lot in public transportations, and I can't stand noisy children. I always think about getting up and slapping them myself.
I've always admired the Victorian approach to children: they're to be seen, not heard.
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
It probably didn't resonate as much or in the same way when the film first came out... It might have even registered as funny! Anyone over the age of 40 to a smack or two from parents or other adults... it was commonplace, once upon a time. My mother swatted me if I acted up in public and no one said a word; Today, they'd have tied her up and had her arrested! Times have changed however and today we are so over-sensitized to it that slapping a child seems shocking.
shareYou bring up a good point pen64. I think a swat on the behind was quite commonplace if a child was deliberately bad or disobedient.
But I'd still hope that people would find the scene shocking. While I can understand the parent or guardian disciplining the child with a swat on the behind (since this is in the 1970s, after all), a slap right across the face implies an uncontrollable rage or even a hatred for the child at that moment. Although there is some anger involved in spanking or swatting, it mainly implies that the child acted bad and is being punished for or discouraged from that. A hard whack across the face is humiliating, and implies that the child himself is bad.
What also makes this scene disturbing is that it is not a case of a parent disciplining a child, but a perfect stanger doing so. I think none of us would like it if perfect strangers decided they had the right to corporally punish our children whenever they saw fit and with whatever force they considered acceptable. Furthermore, I have to backtrack and say that "discipline" is a misnomer for what Trelkovsky does. The child did nothing wrong. He was not being disobedient; he wasn't bullying others; he wasn't misbehaving. He was upset over a lost toy. If I were, say, an 8 or 9-year-old in that condition and a perfect stranger called me names (including "filthy" -- why shame a child with an insult like that?) and smacked me hard in the face, I'd probably be scarred to this day.
It's not the slap that gets me, but the child himself. That's one scary looking kid, almost... demonesque.
shareI think I'll go slap him now. }:-D
I loved it because I had just said "O my god, child, shut up..." and thought "what if he says something rude ... " when he got up and walked over to him, and it happened! It was just so random and funny...
shareIt's not really funny to me, but very powerful. I too have been very intrigued by the whole sequence. The child is so grotesquely ugly, the sound he makes so grotesquely ugly. Polanski's character's reaction so grotesquely ugly. It's a very exciting sequence.
And I think this is a great film. Jesus, that fever sequence alone... it's classic cinema.
I agree--it is a great movie.
And I believe the reason that the scene in which Polanski slaps the child is so powerful because it is an image we rarely see in films--in any case, an image rarely so violently presented. We are starved for these sorts of radical images; popular cinema is too conservative.
It is a wonderful moment. From the very second Polanski's character sees the toddler we can watch his emotions play across his face. He is furious with the brat. How dare this snotty kid whine and wail about such a trivial thing as his silly boat when there are people whose neighbors are plotting to transform them into a woman and then drive them to suicide? It's monstrous, unforgivable, the child has no right to act so. And look, now it's being comforted by a beautiful young woman! This is the last straw!
It's a superlative piece of acting and makes one wish Polanski had stepped in front of the cameras more often.
My reaction was profoundly different. The scene upset me. I felt sorry for both characters.
shareTo me it was more like the message to confirm Trelkovsky is hopeless. Some kind of trigger of madness to happen.
shareOh, for God's sake, Pearl Jade.
I'm so sick of people on the internet turning any little thing into a diatribe against people about how they treat THE CHILDREN.
More than any other kind of movie, especially horror movies, now would be a good time to keep repeating...'It's only a movie...only a movie...only a movie'.
I can't say I found the scene humorous, but I definitely agree there are times when I ... and maybe others ... just wanted to slap a bratty kid every once in a while. Especially when they're bothering others in public.
Of course, that's not to say I'd actually do it. Like I said, it's only a movie. And I'm VERY much against child abuse of any kind.
And I also thought it was a good scene. Kinda weird, but good.
For Pete's sake, mizhu, you're missing the whole point.
Of course I'm well aware that it's only a movie and all those involved are actors. What did you think I was commenting on, that the real Polanski got up while shooting his own movie and decided to abuse a random child who was playing in a nearby park?
I have no criticism with the inclusion of the scene because it's a very powerful moment that tells us a lot about Trelkovsky and makes us (well, some of us) gasp in sympathy with the poor child.
I posted that my response to the scene was shock, that I didn't think it was intended as comic relief, and that I was frankly surprised that some people found it funny. That's my own personal opinion.
And exactly what is it about this child that's so "bratty"? Whom is he bothering? He's not in a restaurant where people are trying to eat. He's not at a concert where people are trying to listen. He's outside in the open air! And why do we assume that because a child is crying, he must be bratty? Don't children have emotions like the rest of us and cry for emotional reasons? I thought the child was genuinely distressed; maybe he was thinking of the punishment he'd get if he came home without that toy boat.
And by the way, even if it's "only" a movie, we're meant to react to powerful scenes. That's why filmmakers put them in their movies.
If we're not immersed in the characters as if we're observing real people and if we don't get emotionally carried away in their lives, then the filmmaker hasn't done a very good job.
And because watching a film is such an immersive experience in which we dissolve the barrier between us and the filmmaking process, then how one reacts to a scene in a movie is not always easily separable from one's real-life attitudes. If I saw a dramatic scene in a movie in which a 14-year-old was lynched and the person next to me laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world, then I would not want to associate with that person. There are times when "oh, I wouldn't condone that in real life but this is only a movie" doesn't cut it if one is watching something particularly disturbing. I'm not saying the child-slapping in The Tenant is on the same level; I'm just submitting the foregoing as an example.
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Anybody else notice the kid had a missing tooth?
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¡No hay la banda!
The slap shows his character has changed. When the man sobbed about never expressing his feelings for Simone, Trevlovsky showed him great consideration and compassion to the point it was unusual. By the time his character slaps the child, he's much less compassionate to other people's problems. Instead of feeling empathy for the child he is instead disgusted by him. The woman who stops to help the little boy sets up the contrast of a "normal" person's reaction.
share^ Bingo.
The slapping of an innocent child is a turning point for Trelkovsky. As he perceives increasing persecution from all sides, his efforts toward survival and self-assertiveness tilt toward the extreme (a danger, I suppose, for one who has never had a balanced middle ground as a reference point). All that morning he is short-tempered with everyone he commonly deals with. Not only does he dispense with the social niceties and accommodations that are his hallmark, but he is also hostile when anyone treats him like the "old" Trelkovsky -- serving him without asking what he wants, assuming he will take what is given uncomplainingly, etc. He even explodes at the affable café staff when they don't have Gauloise cigarettes and coffee -- calling them "murderers" to boot. By the time Trelkovsky takes things out on the young boy, we know he's on a downward spiral.
A little late in the game but, Pearl Jade: Nope.
I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!
I was a bit disturbed by it, you can't slap a little boy in the face!
shareYou can do whatever you want. Which doesn't mean there won't be consequences.
Been making IMDB board posts since the 90s, yet can't bring up any from before December of 2004.
Roman could do far more than that to a little boy.
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Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.
The child's face was HIDEOUSLY ugly...did nobody notice that? At first I actually thought it was a mask and demon imagery. I was actually terrified when I first saw IT.
Forget SLAPPING. Kill it. KILL IT WITH FIRE.