A young American woman (Sydne Rome) traveling through Italy finds herself in a strange Mediterranean villa where nothing seems right. Her visit becomes an absurd, decadent, oversexed version of "Alice in Wonderland", with Marcello Mastroianni as the maddest of mad hatters and Roman Polanski a kinky March hare. Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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david melville (dwingrove@qmuc.ac.uk) from Edinburgh, Scotland
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If you've ever longed to see Marcello Mastroianni being flogged in a tiger skin, What? is the film for you. He plays Alex, a smarmy ex-pimp who lives in one of those terminally fabulous villas that only seem to exist in Italian movies. He gets his other kicks by dressing up as Napoleon or crushing ping-pong balls with his feet.

Among the villa's other denizens are an arthritic pianist, a clutch of sex maniacs, an American husband and wife who bicker endlessly about time zones, a stone-faced German nurse who reads Nietzsche, a pair of sun-bronzed lesbians and a dying millionaire who expires with a blissful smile on his face - after getting a glimpse of the heroine's private parts. Sounds like a normal weekend round at my house...

Into this dislocated universe steps a wide-eyed, Henry James-ian innocent abroad. Sydne Rome plays a backpacking American hippie chick who escapes from an attempted gang rape on the Italian autostrada. (In their impatience to get at her, the would-be rapists get confused and start raping each other by mistake.) She hitches a ride to the villa in a giant metal cage, only to become the sexual plaything of all and sundry.

What? is one of those few movies to play on the obvious notion that 99% of all pornography is just plain silly - hence unwatchable to any viewer with even an elementary sense of the ridiculous. Its 'parody porn' screenplay reads like an LSD-fueled collaboration between Escher, Borges and Lewis Carroll. Not only is it far and away Roman Polanski's funniest film. It is also, quite possibly, his most stylish.

A well-timed revival of What? might do wonders to rescue Polanski from the Oscar-winning solemnity in which he has lately become mired.

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sisteray from United States
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While this is certainly not one of Polanski's finest, it is admittedly a damn funny effort. As a warning, don't expect any real substance to this film. It's ridiculous and trivial, but there are laughs throughout. "What?" fills the gap for those who get a kick out of 70's porn plots, but get bored during the sex scenes. This being said, know that it can easily offend. Expect a movie that will get giggles out of a rape scene. It is a no holds barred comedy that breaks ground that "Happiness" will sweep in to master.

Polanski combines his psychedelic absurdity of "The Magic Christian" with the stark strangeness that he would later delve into in "The Tenant." It is a valiant attempt to create a surreal sexual comedy. For most films, the lack of any depth to the characters will turn away even the most devoted viewer; but "What?" creates entertaining caricatures that bobble and bump into one another, with surprisingly charming results. It is difficult to say whether this is a good film or not, albeit it is shot beautifully, and leaves the viewer with many a chortle, but compared to the brilliance of his other films it seems a bit empty. The film can be best likened to a scarred and matted alley cat that loves to come and visit. It is rough on the edges and not nice to the touch, but the affection it gives leaves the soft spots all the more appealing.



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andrabem from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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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.

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Louis Soubeyran from Grenoble, France
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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.

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bobsgrock from United States
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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.

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Eumenides_0 from Portugal
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In my mission to watch every movie Roman Polanski has directed, sooner or later I'd have to watch his least praised work. And What? may well be considered his worst movie. The 1986 parody Pirates surpasses this one quite easily. But Roman Polanski is such a good filmmaker, even his worst efforts shine with talent, intelligence, and humor.

Allegedly based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the movie opens with Nancy (Sydne Rome), a tourist traveling through Italian; as we meet her she's about to be gang raped by a trio of sleazy Italians who gave her a ride. But she escapes and enters a villa by the sea. She has to take an elevator down to it, and it's up to the viewer whether this underground journey represents Alice's falling down the rabbit hole or a descent to hell.

Hell is perhaps too strong a word, but the villa Nancy finds herself in is nevertheless populated by lost souls consumed by their fantasies, perversions and excesses: there's the lady who strolls naked; the young man who can't stop thinking about sex; the villa keeper always complaining about arthritis but with a knack for piano; there's the owner, Mr. Noblart (Hugh Griffith), who dies after asking Nancy to show him her boobs and vagina. Then there's Roman Polanski playing Mosquito, who's called that way because of his big sting, although it's not what you're thinking about. And finally there's the real star of the movie, Marcello Mastroianni, giving the movie's best performance as Alex, a sado-masochist ex-pimp who likes to be whipped while dressed as a tiger and doesn't mind abusing Nancy while dressed as a Navy admiral.

What? is indefinable: it has no plot, no logic, it flows like a dream and makes as much sense as one. The characters' personality changes all the time, the absurd is always intruding, and poor Nancy is caught in the middle. The movie is full of bawdy humor, unapologetic sexism, gratuitous nudity (as the movie progresses Rome finds herself with less and less clothes until she's naked), and silly violence.

There are two types of strange in cinema: there's mainstream strange - Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, Charlie Kaufman: for some reason people find these filmmakers difficult, complex, confusing, when in fact they make a lot of sense by the end of the movie. But then there's the real strange, the one that laughs at the childish simplicity of Gilliam and Burton and Kaufman. In that group there are movies like Wojciech Has' The Hourglass Sanatorium, Jaromil Jires' Valerie and her Week of Wonders, David Lynch's Eraserhead and Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie. Roman Polanski's movie belongs in this group.

It's not for everyone, which is a pity, for underneath the nonsense there is a movie with a great sense of humor and beautiful cinematography.

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Kirk from Illinois, USA
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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.

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johanneskirchen from Germany
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This movie never ever has been a financial success and many consider it to be Polanski's worst movie ever. This fact proves that only few persons are able to actually recognize what that movie really is, namely an absolute masterpiece. Never ever before a dream was turned that excellently into a movie. Of course, the mainstream viewer's mind is too small to recognize all the Freudian visions hidden in the different scenes. But somebody with a rest of intellect, whose mind is not totally standardized to American mainstream taste, will realize that it actually is not about a soft porn or a comedy but about the visualisation of a dream. Mr. Sigmund Freud had liked it!

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MisterWhiplash from United States
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I watch What?, Roman Polanski's movie about a woman who unintentionally enters into an Italian villa filled with folks that Luis Bunuel might have concocted after a few Martini's, and wonder, what's the point? I suppose it's about collective (and/or random) insanity, and how the most unsuspecting intruder can get wrapped up in the mayhem. Or maybe it's an allegory for the era of 'do what you like' in a morbid paradise in the Italian coast with the rooms and balconies and beaches like another silent character. What is it?

I can wonder this, but what it comes down to is the movie is funny. It's funny because of the extremes Polanski and co-writer Gerard Brach take with characters and specific scenarios. Everybody at this villa, where the protagonist arrives at, is surely demented to one degree or another. There's the pimp, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who loves the feel of crushing ping pong balls with his feet, dressing up as tigers and admirals for sexually sado-masochistic endeavors; there's the guy who plays piano beautifully and doesn't respond when someone talks to him during his incessant playing; there's Polanski himself playing a character named 'Mosquito', a fellow with a fake beard and a strange thing for Sydney Rome's character's jeans, which he steals in her sleep. This doesn't even include random people like the woman walking around naked for no reason.

There is no distinct plot, but rather it follows that illogical line of logic one could find in the Exterminating Angel (or Alice in Wonderland for that matter), or perhaps as just a parody of the creation of a 'sex diary' that Rome carries on her person everywhere. Some lines fly over my head, and others are some of the funniest and most cleverly deranged that Polanski's ever done. There's even time for the villa's wise-old dying patriarch, with his bushy beard and eyebrows who nearly passes on on at a big dinner, only to recover and become with obsessed with Rome's shirt.

This all said, it's not altogether excellent. Rome's performance wavers between competency and total flatness. That might have been what Polanski wanted (she reminded on of a slightly cuter Elizabeth Berkley), but aside from good looks there's not much going on for her here. The good news is the bevy of Italian character players, people one's never seen before (or non-Italian ones like Hugh Griffith), hit their marks and can be hysterical on the whole.

None, however, are quite as good as Mastroianni. As another proof of his genius as an actor, he makes this perverted Don Jaun all his own. He's suave, but in that slimy way, like a permanently libidinous version of his sexual fantasies in 8 1/2. So that his sudden appearances qas he spies on Rome are funny on their own, but one he gets into 'uniforn' in those sex-role play scenes (particularly that tiger, good Lord), or fetishizes that ping pong ball, it's a kind of outrageous perfection.

What? isn't top-shelf Polanski, and there is something to it being unavailable for so long in the Unites States. But if you ca find it, and are at least a decent fan of the director and/or the star, it's a hoot. That's what it is.

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antti-veikko pihlajamaki from Finland
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Nicely drawn! This film truly is one of my all-time favourites. Years ago I lost my VHS, but last week found the movie on DVD in Spain. For a Milo Manara fan, like myself, this film should do the trick. With all it's weaknesses this film is a masterpiece in capturing some of the most hope-to-part-of -dream sequences I can come up with.

Here Polanski is on a playful mood, which most certainly resonates with me. Nudity is no pornography. Occasional nose up the snatch, ain't pornography either. At least in northern parts of Europe. It's connecting people - like Nokia says.

Excellent, if you please..

mediterranean|villa|italy|bare breasts|woman wearing only a man's shirt|scuba diver|uniform|dominatrix|bdsm|walkie talkie|spear gun|piano|oxygen tank|one word title|male nudity|flashing|face slap|diary|deja vu|question in title|erotica|upskirt|shower|seaside|female frontal nudity|carabinieri|lesbian|black comedy|absurdism|whip|surrealism|priest|ping pong|female nudity|breaking the fourth wall|beach|swimming pool|diving gear|american abroad|attempted rape|sexuality|title spoken by character|

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Certifications:
Argentina:16 / Australia:M / Finland:K-16 / France:12 / Germany:16 (DVD rating) / Netherlands:18 (original rating) / Norway:18 / Spain:18 / Sweden:15 / UK:X (original rating) / UK:18 (video) / USA:R (certificate #858) (re-rating) / USA:X (original rating) / West Germany:16 (f)