What? (1972) – AKA Che?

strangest attraction is Alex, a languid, diseased former pimp played by Marcello Mastroianni with wonderfully shameless charm. Nancy becomes fascinated by him despite every warning sign. He dresses in a tiger skin, crawls around demanding to be whipped, swings between seductive self-pity and controlling games, and later turns an island outing into a kinky interrogation involving bondage and a switch of sadomasochistic roles.

Around them, Polanski piles up absurd encounters: ping-pong obsessives, unseen residents, intrusive admirers and Mosquito, the director’s own pint-sized character, forever boasting about his “stinger” while carrying a spear gun. This is less a conventional story than a dirty, dreamlike chain of comic humiliations, with Nancy playing an innocent Alice lost in a Wonderland of ageing European libertines. The humour is dry, awkward and deliberately repetitive; some scenes are funny, others are sour, and the opening assault being treated as slapstick will understandably repel many viewers. Yet the film has a peculiar pull. Polanski shoots the madness with elegant widescreen compositions and lets the camera glide through the villa as if decadence were merely another part of the furniture. The result feels like an expensive Mediterranean holiday invaded by a surreal sex farce—beautifully made, wilfully tasteless and impossible to confuse with anything sensible.

Everything about the film belongs to the anything-goes mood of early-1970s European cinema, when filmmakers could mix arthouse absurdity, black comedy and softcore nudity without worrying about neat categories. Most of it was filmed at Villa TreVille in Positano on the Amalfi Coast, and the dazzling white rooms, cliffside terraces, private lift and deep blue sea give the film a lazy, luxurious holiday atmosphere. Classical music adds an oddly refined touch while the characters behave like escaped inmates from a very expensive asylum.

Sydne Rome carries the picture with blonde, breathy innocence, a mischievous smile and a soft, naturally feminine beauty that the camera openly adores. Nancy is naive without seeming entirely stupid, sexually curious without becoming worldly, and Rome’s unguarded performance makes her an appealing centre for all the surrounding male madness. She spends a large portion of the film topless or completely naked, with her breasts, backside and full figure displayed generously and without coy editing. There is whipping, bondage, sexual pursuit and plenty of suggestive behaviour, but no hardcore action or actual sex scenes. The erotic charge comes almost entirely from Rome wandering through that gorgeous villa in various stages of undress—sun-kissed, confused and irresistibly feminine while every dirty old rogue in the house loses what little sense he had.