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.

Sydney Rome is an American traveling in Italy who flees to a private villa after being attacked by some really inept rapists. Within the estate she meets a bunch of crazy people, including former pimp Marcello Mastroianni in what has to be the craziest, most outlandishly go-for-broke performance of his career. Comparisons to Alice in Wonderland (always mentioned in conjunction with this film) are a huge stretch, I think. There's an innocent girl in a strange place surrounded by crazy people, but that's about the extent of the parallels. At best it's like Lewis Carroll reinterpreted by a horny high schooler who still giggles when he hears the word "breast." Nevertheless, for the first half hour or so I thought this was one of the funniest movies I had ever seen. Unfortunately it climaxed with Mastroianni crawling around in a tiger hide making meowing noises (whereupon Rome starts "taming" him with the whip). After that the film never really recovers the energy it started out with and viewers are left with little to do but wonder how Rome will be humiliated next (first her shirt is ripped, then stolen, then she walks around wearing a napkin until she finds another shirt, but then her pants are stolen, finally she loses the shirt, etc). I love unadulterated nonsense (SCHIZOPOLIS, FORBIDDEN ZONE, THE BED SITTING ROOM) but aside from a couple of choice moments this film's particular pointlessness was lazy and uninspired.

I've never seen a movie that feels more like an off-his-rocker director who'd recently found fame and riches, likely on a drug binge, using his funding to basically say **** you and splooge all over his entire audience, by making a completely ridiculous, meandering, pointless, and entirely nonsensical "movie", which of course stars a strikingly gorgeous lead actress who is half naked the majority of the time.

I am a huge fan of Roman Polanski's early filmography (60's-70's) but I swear he must have been on a drug BINGE when he decided to make this movie. Thriving after the success of Rosemary's Baby, binging on who knows what, and thinking "I can do whatever I want, so I'm going to do this, LOL". One of the most careless celluloid jerk-off's I have ever seen. Is Sydne Rome beautiful? Yes. Is the movie hilarious? Sometimes, but not usually. Does it have a plot? No. Is there any sort of structural progression to it? No. Is it hilarious that he made it? Yes. Will I ever watch it again? Probably not.

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 parallel between the story of "What?" and "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Caroll is very interesting, and maybe this film is the most precise adaptation of Caroll's crazy story, precisely because it really shows all the sexual content of Alice's dream trip. The movie construction reminds the "passage" of Alice "behind the mirror": she escapes the cruel world (the rapists) when she goes down to the "loonies house". Mastroianni's pimp character reminds of the Mad Hatter, because he keeps asking Sydne Rome if she wants to have tea with him around five o'clock. Polanski's character can also be seen as the Mad Hatter sidekick in the book: he keeps fighting with Mastroianni all day long, as if it was some kind of game between them. Polanski is very funny as a nervous "little guy" with a splendid mustache! At the same time he was shooting "What?" in Italy, Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey shot "Flesh for Dracula" nearby, and that explains Polanski's apparition with mustache in a scene of this film. Of course, the "sexual innocence" of Sydne Rome put the film on the rank of "erotic fantasy". The tribute to "Alice" is clear, but it seems that the film may have influenced a great Italian erotic illustrator, Milo Manara, whose sexy heroins really look like Sydne Rome, and are often place in similarly "unvolontary" sexual situations (oooh, the pooor girl lost her clothes, what a shame!). Anyway, this is a crazy absurd funny and sexy film, that never takes itself seriously (at the end, Rome yells to Mastroianni: "Don't worry, this is only a film!")with a very colorful and "sunny" atmosphere.