CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Voxitype
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
RaoulGonzo
A direct quote from Polanski "My wish was to make a film without costumes first of all, preferably without clothes at all. And without catapults and stage fights. MacBeth exhausted us all to such an extent that we were truly ready to change professions." What? For the most part is a throwaway sex comedy, a film to pick up the spirits at the time depleted director - An absurd Italian Sex farce for which in Italy at least was a success.It's no more than a series of vignettes with no real beginning, middle or end. Things just happen for no apparent reason and without any explanation. Nancy (Sydne Rome) after escaping a trio of inept rapists stumbles into a rambling coastal estate wearing little more than an napkin throughout.Certainly a misstep in Polanski's oeuvre but it's not without its moments of genuine humour and flashes of his trademark shots. Moments of wit in the script but most of the shortcomings are in the direction itself What? Indeed were they trying to say? A running time of 2 hours does test the patience, a film for completists mainly instantly forgettable, but maybe this is what was needed to recharge the batteries to make his next film "Chinatown".
gavin6942
A young American woman (Sydne Rome) traveling through Italy finds herself in a strange Mediterranean villa where nothing seems right.The film opens with a rape attempt -- very odd for any comedy, even more odd coming from Polanski, given his reputation now. Of course, he also has rapes in his other films... hmm...Does this film have excessive nudity? Sydne Rome spends a fair amount of this film topless, bottomless or both. And then she is attacked by a tiger from Africa. Yes, a tiger from Africa. (The scene immediately called Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" to mind.)The dreaded Marlboro cigarettes show up that appear in so many of Polanski's films. If I ever meet him, that will be the first thing I ask. And then the film breaks the fourth wall... making the absurdity even more absurd.When producer Robert Evans was trying to coax Roman Polanski to direct Chinatown (1974), he found Polanski thoroughly absorbed with this film, to the extent that he had bought a 50% share in it. Evans eventually lured Polanski by saying that whatever "What" made in its opening week, he would pay him as his salary for directing "Chinatown". Polanski readily agreed to this, expecting "What" to do well as he considered it the best thing he had done up to that point. Unluckily for Polanski, "What" only grossed $64 on its first week.
christopher-underwood
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.
david melville
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.
