What? (Diary of Forbidden Dreams)

World Cinema continues revisiting some of their previous presentations with Roman Polanski’s rarely shown What? — a film that frankly ought to be better known than it is. From my original review I write: “What? might almost be called The Missing Roman Polanski Film. It was made between Macbeth (1971) and Chinatown (1974) and was scarcely released in the U.S., though it received a spotty release in the late ‘70s in an attempt to cash in on the notoriety of Polanski fleeing the country. At that time it was recut and retitled Diary of Forbidden Dreams and marketed as ‘the erotic fantasies of the world’s most notorious filmmaker.’ Although the film could be classed as a sex comedy and is a very sexual film, I find it hard to believe that What? represents Polanski’s erotic fantasies — or those of anyone else. All the sex in the film (and there’s a good bit of it) is either playful or downright silly, and any eroticism is simply from the film’s plentiful nudity. Of course, if the idea of Marcello Mastroianni in a moth-eaten tiger skin (apparently from a geographically-challenged animal he claims to have shot in Africa) being whipped by Sydney Rome — or Mastroianni in an Italian police uniform spanking a handcuffed Ms. Rome with a switch — turns you on, then that’s another matter. That does, however, give some slight idea of this exceedingly strange and oddly fragile absurdist reworking of Alice in Wonderland.” 

Full review: http://avl.mx/mz

Classic World Cinema by Courtyard Gallery will present What? Friday, Nov. 9 at 8 p.m. at Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts St., River Arts District, upstairs in the Railroad Library).  Info: 273-3332, www.ashevillecourtyard.com