Reviews & Ratings for
What? More at IMDbPro »Che? (original title)

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26 out of 32 people found the following review useful:
"Do I LOOK Like I'm Joking?", 17 June 2004
Author: david melville (dwingrove@qmuc.ac.uk) from Edinburgh, Scotland

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.

19 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
The Name Says it All, 11 December 2000

Author: sisteray from United States

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.

13 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Yes, it IS Alice in Wonderland!, 19 October 2004
Author: Louis Soubeyran from Grenoble, France

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.

9 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
The dream girl in the House of Dreams, 26 August 2008
Author: andrabem from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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.

8 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
Psychedelic, 13 November 1999

Author: iF.... (vertraeumen@mindspring.com) from U.S.A.

What? Is a psychedelic fairy tale about an American hippie who wanders into the decadent environment of a seaside villa in Italy after nearly being raped while hitchhiking. She is given a room and, within moments, begins undressing under the peeping eye of a perverted former pimp played by Marcelo Mastroianni, which causes the hippie girl to embark on a mysterious sexual journey. Things are, at the very least, strange within the villa. One inhabitant constantly groans in his room; a mysterious voyeur watches the girl through a hole in her wall; two women wander through the terrace both wearing fancy hats but only one wearing clothes; and of course Mosquito played by the man himself, Roman Polanski. A day after the girl stays in the house, she starts believing she is having déjà vu, each sexual fantasy after the next haunt her over and over again.

I certainly don't consider this to be one of Polanski's best. Due to the content, it is rather sad to see a great actor like Mastroianni in such a poorly developed film like this. Polanski, a filmmaker that previously showed the world he could make great films then decides to make such a poor film as this. Then again this is a hippie film, so for the times I guess it was ok. Nothing impressive to say the least, but since I'm a Polanski fan; lets just say I was just curious to see what he had to offer.

9 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Something went wrong here..., 24 August 2006
Author: Kirk from Illinois, USA

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.

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Roman in Wonderland, 28 December 2010

Author: TrevorAclea from London, England

Pretty much Roman Polanski's rarest film these days – the print for the DVD was supposedly stolen from producer Carlo Ponti's vault - What? is a surprisingly enjoyable reimagining of Alice in Wonderland as a 70s sex comedy with Sydne Rome escaping a trio of inept rapists via cable car to a beachside villa where she encounters various human equivalents of Lewis Carroll's creations trapped in their own perverse fantasy worlds. Thus the White Rabbit becomes a doddering caretaker, Tweedledum and Tweedle Dee a pair of ping pong playing layabouts, the walrus a priest on a lilo, the March Hare Polanski's harpoon-wielding Mosquito ("That filthy little dwarf!"), the White Knight Hugh Griffith's dying patriarch and the Mad Hatter Marcello Mastroianni's ex-pimp, ping pong ball crusher and tiger impersonator. Did I mention the American tourists? It has it's own dreamlike logic and acceptance of the absurd that will certainly alienate some viewers as it did most contemporary critics: the only thing that people find hard to accept in this beautiful sun drenched locale are logic and reasons, preferring to stay hidden in their own recurring obsessions. Rome isn't much of an actress but she does have the ability to retain an air of innocence even when completely naked, which is the main demand of the part, and the film is surprisingly well cast, with Mastroianni relishing the chance to play laid-back sleazy and Polanski himself at his funniest when delivering offscreen death threats. It's all nonsense and knows its nonsense – even the end, explaining away its own arbitrary absurdity while revealing the film's title – but if you're simpatico, it's surprisingly seductive nonsense.

8 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
A dream turned into a movie, 10 April 2008

Author: johanneskirchen from Germany

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!

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Strange, Sexy, Absurd - Polanski's Weirdest Movie Yet, 16 April 2010

Author: Eumenides_0 from Portugal

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

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.

What can one say?, 24 May 2012
Author: bobsgrock from United States

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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