To Be Twenty

Fernando Di Leo is a director that gets a lot of criticism; and most of it is unfair in my opinion as he's directed a lot of the best Italian crime movies of the seventies, as well as some other curious gems. To Be Twenty is something of a departure from his crime films and doesn't really fit into any of the main genre headings that were popular in seventies Italy; although at a stretch it could be described as a cross between a sex comedy and an exploitation flick. The film is slightly misguided and that is its main problem as on the one hand it's light and breezy, and on the other hand it actually tries to make some points...with mixed results. The plot focuses on two young girls who are both young, hot and angry that meet on a beach. They set off to hitch a lift together and so begins an odyssey as the pair try to create an existence for themselves in a world overridden with sex, perverts and drugs. They manage to find a place to stay but not everything goes to plan and before long, the girls find themselves living a nightmare.

The tone of the movie is one of the best things about it as the director excellently captures the hippy-style care free atmosphere through the two young girls. The film stars Gloria Guida and Lilli Carati; both of whom serve the movie well in the looks department, especially when their clothes come off, but don't exactly set the film on fire with great acting. However, luckily this is a film that doesn't need great acting to succeed. The plot flows well and the two girls provide likable characters that make the film fun to watch. It's not exactly plot heavy and the film basically follows the girls on their unplanned journey right up until we come to the tragic ending. The ending is actually rather strange as it doesn't fit the tone of the movie and actually looks more like something straight out of a roughie film. However, it is rather powerful and won't be forgotten in a hurry; and the reason for that is mostly down to the way we are made to like the characters throughout the film. Overall, this film probably won't be for everyone's taste; but if you like this sort of stuff, you could do worse.

Some time in the mid-70s, out-of-luck director Fernando di Leo had a million dollar idea: Why not do a remake of one of the top grossing blockbusters of 1969, with a slightly altered tagline: "Two chicks went looking for Italia and couldn't find it anywhere." And since those chicks would hitchhike across the country to join a hippie community, they didn't even need those pricey motorbikes! The Captain America role went to Euro teen star blonde Gloria Guida, the Billy part to the lesser-known Lilli Carati, a downright stunning brunette literally acting out every single word of her dialogue: „I'm young, hot, and p*ssed off. Does anybody here f*ck?" A radically pessimistic statement from the bleak opening beach scene to the unforeseeable (and utterly disgusting) climax, Avere vent'anni bites off more than di Leo could chew: His counterculture swan song about two female libertines who inescapably will go to the dogs never finds a rhythm, a loose, sloppy concoction of scenes that don't blend, a programmatic reading from Valerie Solanas's SCUM manifesto („A pip-squeak with dysfunctional femininity that despises women: That is man.") remaining fairly more than a nod to the feminist zeitgeist in Fernando's T&A exploitation circus. Two stars for the boisterous performance of the lead actresses, reciprocating between vulnerability, sexual aggression, and pure, breathless joie de vivre, especially in the dance scene on the piazza; another one for Ray Lovelock's fine interpretation of a disenchanted druggie, and one and a half for the super catchy theme song. Ah, and as for Signorina Carati: Eat your heart out, Dennis Hopper.

This movie is available in two versions. The English-language version is a badly-dubbed, waste-of-time sex comedy (not unlike a lot of the films co-lead Gloria Guida was starring in at the time). The Italian version is similarly light-hearted for much of its running time, but it does make some serious commentary on police corruption, the confused politics and ultimate hollowness of the 70's era counterculture, and the reactionary nature of male-dominated rural Italy. The ending is unforgettably brutal, inspired no doubt by films like "Last House on the Left" or "Late Night Trains". Like those films it was quite controversial, and really for the same ironic reason--because you really come to like the two lead characters and care what happens to them. This is no mean feat as Gloria Guida had no real acting talent beyond looking (really) good naked and the other lead, porno-starlet-to-be Lili Carati, was, if anything, even less talented.

The plot of the movie is rather loose and picaresque. It follows these two "beautiful and p***ed-off" girls as they hitchhike, shoplift, crash at a commune, dabble in prostitution, sell encyclopedias to lecherous university professors, get rousted by the police, and finally meet a tragic end at a roadhouse. Along the way the way they more than fulfill the sexploitation skin quotient and frequently throw themselves at various men who hilariously rebuff them (although despite the famed sexual aggressiveness of Italian men, it is not impossible to believe that they might react this way if the tables were suddenly turned on them). It is this free-spirited sexual aggressiveness that proves to be downfall of the two girls, but this movie is ultimately more touching and tragic than cautionary and moralistic--traditional, male-dominated Italian society certainly doesn't come off to well here.

The two versions have different discoesque musical arrangements that the characters do sexy, impromptu dances to--the Italian one is kind of catchy but the English-language is about as enjoyable as a barium enema. I would't bother with the English-language version, but the Italian version is definitely a worthwhile little movie.

Hippie-exploitation movies aren't my cup of tea, but I honestly thought this was worth an exception based on the names involved. Fernando Di Leo is the writer/director of some of the most brutally violent and uncompromising Poliziotesschi movies, Ray Lovelock starred in many classics in that same sub-genre, and Gloria Guida and Lilli Carati, well... they're both just incredibly hot. Alas, though, even in this film all the annoying trademarks of hippie flicks are inevitable. I'm referring to a senseless plot, passive lead characters, unbelievable dumb weirdos in the supportive cast, copious amounts of pointless dancing footage, and a lot of hinting at sex-sequences that never come.

Beautiful brunette Tina and her even more beautiful blond friend Lia are - to put it in their own words - young, hot, and very angry with the world. They travel to Rome, where they join a sort of commune and get in all sorts of trouble. That's pretty much the only synopsis I can give. There's one very enjoyable sequence, namely when the brunette goes out to sell encyclopedias (yes, really!) and drives a university professor insane by making him believe she gets aroused from hearing the word "culture". Everything else is beyond pathetic, like a roommate dressed up as a meditating Pierrot (Leopoldo Mastelloni), and another lunatic who's dressed like "Where's Waldo?" (Vincenzo Crocciti).

"To Be Twenty" is somewhat notorious for featuring an extremely sick and misogynistic climax that totally doesn't fit the overall tone of the film. True, it's very sick, but it doesn't make the film any better or more interesting whatsoever. I also don't understand what Di Leo meant to say with this climax. Does he feel the girls get what they deserve? Is the moral of the story that women are the weaker sex? Or maybe simply that it's too dangerous for women to be traveling alone? All three options are loathsome, in fact.

I have seen a shortened cut of "Avere Vent'Anni" but now I've watched the full-length version twice and there's a lot more to this film than some people seem to think. Fun is poked at bourgeois society, at self-important males doing jobs they think are important (store detectives, police inspectors), at a rich lesbian, at transcendental meditation, in short at many facets of seventies' life in Italy. Even the two female leads come in for their share. The ending can be seen as having nothing to do with the story, but I think there's more to it: while the girls just flit through life taking nothing seriously except having a good time, lurking at almost every corner is the reality of corrupt policemen and unscrupulous gangsters - the nasty side of the real world ... and in the end that will be their downfall.