6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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.
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Hugh Griffith, Sydne Rome, Roman Polanski, Romolo ValliErotic | 100% |
Dark humor | Insignificant |
Surreal | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
Italian: LPCM 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
If you hang around the hallowed halls of Hollywood long enough (“long enough” being probably about a nanosecond in this particular instance), you’re apt to hear someone somewhere profess that famous La La Land adage, “But what I really want to do is direct.” Perhaps ironically, one of the film industry’s most famous (some might argue notorious) directors, Roman Polanski, seems to follow a different maxim, namely, “What I really want to do is act”, at least as evidenced by some supposed thespian proclivities he’s put on display through the years, often (but not exclusively) in films he himself is directing. Polanski has had at least cameos (and at times much more featured roles) in a variety of his own outings, including in Knife in the Water, Repulsion, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Chinatown, and The Tenant, and he’s on hand again in an uncredited role as the whimsically named Mosquito in one of his strangest efforts, the 1972 quasi-farce What?. This is one film whose title might be thought of by some as absolute truth in advertising, for its supposed reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s immortal Alice in Wonderland is a crazy quilt of frankly bizarre vignettes, all suffused with an unapologetic sexuality that threatens to fairly burst through the screen at regular intervals. (While several sources, both contemporary and after the fact, link the film to the Carroll story, it's probably important to note that the connection is tangential at best, and there's no credit given to Carroll in the film's credits, meaning any perceived tether is at least debatable.)
What? is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2:35:1. This appears to be identical with the release Severin brought out in the UK which Svet covered in his What? Blu- ray review. This generally a nice looking if occasionally problematic transfer. Things are a little dodgy in the very opening moments, some of which is due to the opticals of the credits sequence, but once the film transitions to brightly lit daylight sequences, the palette is vivid and natural looking and detail levels are generally excellent. A later sequence bathed in deep cobalt blues has a few deficits in fine detail, but nothing overly concerning. Grain is a little ungainly looking at times, and as Svet noted in his review of the UK release, density is slightly variable.
What? defaults to an English LPCM 2.0 track, but an Italian LPCM 2.0 track is also available. Both tracks show signs of ubiquitous post looping, meaning sync can be slightly loose at times. Fidelity is generally fine, though highs sounded a bit brittle to my ears, especially with regard to some of the classical orchestral source cues. As Svet noted in his review of the UK release, subtitles would have been welcome given the prevalence of thick accents in the English language version.
What? just never quite hit the comedic sweet spot for me, seeming to be too frenetic for its own good, and filled with the sort of visual non sequiturs one might expect from a Buñuel film, without any of Buñuel's piquant social commentary. The film is undeniably ribald, which may in fact recommend it to some, but it's also pretty chaotic, meaning any titillation is transitory at best. Severin's release offers generally very good technical merits and some fun supplements.
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