Quoi?

What a surprise, and what fun! Although I remember seeing promotional shots of this movie back in the 70s, hearing no more about it, I eventually decided it must never have been made. But, here it is in all its craziness. The beginning is rather edgy as the delectable, Sydne Rome is almost gang raped before the action swings into slapstick and she escapes, albeit with ripped t-shirt. This is as fully dressed as she ever is in this ending up fully nude and leaving the madhouse as quickly as she entered it. An amazing cast clearly had great fun and Hugh Griffith is as animated as I've seen him as the lecherous old head of the household. Mastroianni is marvellous throughout (in and out of the tiger skin). But everybody enters into the spirit and if we never see Lollipop because she is always on her back being serviced by one of the ping pong players, we hear her shouting her encouraging, 'Give it!' in accompaniment to his, 'Take it!'. Polanski is suitably quirky in a particularly quirky role and if the whole thing appears like some LSD inspired wonderland, it has been lovingly made with some style and is a joy to watch.

Words seem rather moot in attempting to describe a film of this nature. Roman Polanski's bizarre, unfunny, yet beautifully-made film about a beautiful but naive American who becomes trapped in a decadent setting of horny Italians and indifferent foreigners is almost too embarrassing to be associated with the great director. And yet, it kept my interest practically the whole way through.

Roger Ebert has often noted that it takes a great director to make a truly awful film. Polanski surely is talented but is this film a travesty? The truth of the matter remains that it is surely one most Polanski fans either have not seen or are avoiding like the plague. This may be a good idea. Nevertheless, there are reasons why this film seems to haunt the fringes of the cinematic world. It has often been compared to Alice in Wonderland with its plot of a young girl being thrown into one crazy situation after another within a confined space. As for any possible meaning or symbolism behind these set pieces, I have no clue.

Perhaps we are not supposed to look too closely. Maybe this is Polanski trying to relax and make a comedy, mixed inevitably with his trademark absurdity and sadness. In the end, the traits which make Polanski unique remain visible despite the surface appearing much too seedy and unwholesome for the average film viewer. This is a film that cannot be recommended or hated, only observed of how bizarre it truly is.

The early 70s were the stage for many experiments. Barriers were being broken and the boundaries were expanded. In the cinema, taboos were challenged and defeated. It was a time for change, a time for improvisation. It was in the spirit of those times that Polanski made "What?" "What?" could be defined as a surrealistic modern "Alice in Erotic Land".

An innocent young and beautiful American woman, Nancy (Sydne Rome) - She is hitchhiking in Italy. The three men that gave her a lift try to rape her, but they are in such a hurry and are so clumsy, that one of them, having lost his glasses, begins to sodomize the other. A verbal fight ensues among them and in the confusion, Nancy runs away. One of them runs after her. In her flight she sees a funicular waiting there for her as on purpose. The funicular takes her to a white villa.

This villa is peopled by very bizarre characters. Nancy, running away from the cruelty of the world, has landed in the house of dreams. Is this her dream, is she a dream dreamed by other people, or both? This luxurious white villa located by the beautiful tyrrhenian sea seems very remote from everyday life. Among the characters there is a former pimp, Alex (Marcello Mastroianni), two french lesbians, a priest that watches everything with disapproving eyes, the paraplegic patriarch of the house with his serious-looking Nietzsche-reading German nurse, and even Polanski is present, as Mosquito, that has no love left for Alex, the pimp, with whom he's always arguing.

Nancy, interpreted by the gorgeously beautiful Sydne Rome, will be the object of desire of every male (excepting maybe the priest) inhabiting the villa. Even the growling dog falls under her charm, and the same happened to me.

Sydne Rome, in an interview in the DVD (released in Italy), defined "What?" as an erotic dream. This is exactly what I think.

Alex, the pimp (Marcello Mastroianni), will persuade her to engage in kinky sexual games. But don't you expect the sleaze displayed by other Italian films of the time - by these standards "What?" can be considered tamer than its Italian brothers. Still in some scenes Sydne Rome is shown in the nude, and in many others she's wandering around the house semi-naked. In the strange sexual games that happen between her and Alex, Sydne Rome has her clothes on. But believe me, these scenes are very sensual. The beautiful Sydne Rome, with her angel face and her large innocent eyes, and Marcello Mastroianni, wearing either a leopard skin or a Napoleon costume... well, it's something to be seen and enjoyed!

As Polanki has worked with a tight script and hasn't given much way to improvisation, "What?" seems sometimes more a theater play than a film. The characters are like dream figures and the conversations are surrealistic/symbolic. "What?" is a surrealistic comedy which is based mainly on the actions and words of the characters, as it happens in any good theater play. But don't get me wrong, "What?" is a film and feels like a film. It's just that the words in "What?" seem to weigh more than necessary and stifle somewhat the spontaneity of the acting. Apparently the actors in the film were not given the freedom to improvise and this spoils the fluency and the dreamy atmosphere of the film.

Take another Italian film made at the time - "L'Occhio nel labirinto" (Blood) by Mario Caiano. The script was probably hastily written. The characters are somewhat poorly developed, the film is a giallo that has psychoanalytical motives - a labyrinth, a killing, loss of memory, a white villa by the sea (yes!). It has flashbacks, fast hand-held cameras following the characters and unveiling the landscape. The story may seem to some a patch-up work - sex, crimes, psychoanalysis, the beach and the sun mixed together - but the film is entertaining and intriguing, even if it was made to earn a fast buck. The same cannot be said for "What?".

Polanski with "What?" wanted to make a sunny, dreamy and sexy film, and, in a way, he almost got there, but if he had let himself really go and had given the actors more freedom .... "What?" could have been something! As it is, "What?" is a half-successful psychedelic film, intellectual and slightly theatrical.

In spite of all, I think that "What?" is an interesting film - theatrically dreamy and psychedelic, and very, very sexy.

This was a movie that I'd checked out years ago and was intrigued enough to buy it for another viewing. It is beautifully dated as evidenced by the film quality and the attitudes towards sex.

The main character is a young woman hitchhiking across Europe. After a violent encounter with what has to be the most inept rapists that Europe has ever produced, she escapes via cable-car. Suddenly, she is in a house that is filled with loonies.

There is a large table, set for dozens and, most of the time, void of diners...save Alice. There is the pimp who, despite his cruelty and rudeness, seduces the young American girl. There is Mosquito, a small man with a deformed face and a speargun...

This movie is strange. It treats as normal the oddest situations; however, it gets strangest when the situations are at their most normal: A piano duet, a middle-aged couple unpacking...

I would give it three and a half out of five. Probably one of Polanski's best...

Marcello mastroianni, sydne rome. When nancy is attacked and robbed in italy, she runs into a mansion on the hill to escape. And finds some very strange house guests. The women are mostly nude. Polanski himself plays one of the crazy houseguests. Everyone is having sex, of some sort. The trivia section tells us this is on the list of 15 garbage movies with a ton of skin! An hour in, noblart the owner, (hugh griffith) shows up and makes a giant hullabaloo! And who keeps stealing nancy's clothes? It's all nonsense. Nothing happens. Over and over. And i'm not sure if we learned anything by the end of the film. (you call that an ending??) directed by roman polanski. This was after the sharon tate murders, but before he fled the united states. Certainly interesting, as a bit of history surrounding polanski. Otherwise....