AVERE VENT’ANNI (1978)

Some years ago I read a short review (I can’t remember where) of an Italian film that sounded very interesting, but seemed to be extremely difficult to obtain. I forgot about it until some months ago when I noticed that it had received a DVD release in Italy, with English subtitles, on the Rarovideo ‘Nocturno’ imprint. The film in question is Fernando Di Leo’s controversial 1978 Avere Vent’Anni, or Being Twenty in English. Di Leo was a very prolific director who, like so many other directors in the heyday of Italian cinema, dabbled in various genres with differing levels of success. The majority of his work was in the ‘poliziesco’ genre (violent cops’n’robbers films) and his marvelous Milano Calibro 9 (1972) is widely regarded as one of the principle examples of this cinematic subgenre. He was also responsible for the dire borderline giallo Slaughter Hotel (1971) starring Klaus Kinski, a couple of strange misfire action films and some unusual social dramas, usually with erotic content. Being Twenty falls into the latter class.

The film opens with a group of young people lying about on a beach. Someone turns on the radio and they seem to come to life, dancing and swimming. When they leave, two girls remain – Tina (Lilli Carati) and Lia (Gloria Guida). Striking up a friendship, the two head off to Rome, hitch-hiking their way there. They shoplift, before heading to a commune run by Nazariota (Vittorio Caprioli). Tina falls for a stoner living at the commune (Ray Lovelock) and the girls have sex with other male ‘residents’. A film-maker turns up and asks them about their lives, before leading a debate on feminism. They go out selling encyclopedia subscriptions, leading to various sexual encounters. Later, the police bust the commune and order the two girls to return to their home towns. They stop by a secluded restaurant on their way home, and provoke some locals by dancing in extremely revealing mini-shorts. They leave and are pursued by the men, leading to a violent conclusion…

The film was only briefly shown in this version – audiences reacted badly, somewhat understandably, to the ending which seems to have strayed in from I Spit on Your Grave or one of the Lenzi/Deodato ‘cannibal’ films (the most explicit scene: Tina is eventually help upside down naked and a large branch is rammed into her vagina twice). A gentler ending was shot and the film was re-released in this form. As far as I’m aware, there hasn’t been an official release of the uncut version of the film prior to this with an English language option, so its reputation has largely been formed by people reading about it rather than seeing it. Both versions of the film are included in the DVD release.

It’s clear that the summer of love was very much over when Di Leo conceived the film (he wrote the screenplay some years before it was actually filmed), though he seems to be on the side of the carefree girls for most of the time. Viewing the film today, they seem even more like caricatures than they probably did back in ‘78, naïve and uninhibited, wearing their sexuality on their sleeves (if they ever wore anything that concealing!). Nazariota refers to them as ‘Peace and Evil’ and they are obviously written as clear archetypal opposites. Tina is dark haired, fiery, aggressive, loud, whilst Lia is blonde, sweet, passive, quiet - “we’re young, hot and pissed off” is their catchphrase. We discover that both have rebelled as a result of their upbringings – Tina ran away from her oppressive parents (“they found out I was a sex maniac”), whilst Lia was brought up in an orphanage before living in a strict catholic boarding school. They consider sex completely natural – no big deal – and are happy to experiment with lesbian trysts, group sex, etc.

This is where the film seems split, as all exploitation films tend to be: on one hand, the film makes it clear that both girls want sex and are often the active partners, rather than the passive ones women are often portrayed to be (at one point a frustrated Tina asks a room full of stoned men “does anyone want to sleep with me?”) However, on the other hand they are very much shown as tantalizing sex objects (both girls were former ‘Miss Italy’ winners), and happily act as whores in order to pay for their room at the commune. The conclusion can easily be interpreted as the girls getting what they deserve (even more so thanks to the heavy handed handling of the dialogue in the scene), or as a cautionary tale, depending on how much slack you’re prepared to cut Di Leo.

The film opens with a quote from French philosopher Paul Nizan’s 1931 essay 'Aden, Arabie': “I was 20 years old. I will never allow anyone to say that these were the best years of my life”. It also references Wilhelm Reich’s 'The Sexual Revolution' (1945), communism, feminism, capitalism, etc. Despite its highbrow pretensions however, it remains a strictly exploitational affair.

There is some interesting casting in the film – Gloria Guida as Lia is simply stunning, one of the most attractive actresses working in Italian cinema during the 70’s. She’s probably best known for her lead role in Silvio ‘Amuck’ Amadio’s 1975 giallo So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious and also appeared in notorious Mexican director Rene Cardona Jnr’s The Bermuda Triangle (1978). It’s worth pointing out that she sings the theme song to Being Twenty, lending extra poignancy to the final scenes. Lilli Carati is less successful in her portrayal of Tina, which is so one-note that is becomes very tiresome and probably helks to lessen the impact of the film’s climax. She went on to appear in a string of softcore porn films for Joe D’Amato in the 80’s.

Ray Lovelock needs to introduction to genre fans, I’m sure, but he’s given very little to do here and is basically anonymous in the role of Rico. Fulci favourite Daniela Doria pops up in a minor role, whilst Leopoldo Mastelloni (Daria Nicolodi’s butler in Inferno (1980)) provides the film’s humour in his role as a bizarre white-faced ‘spiritual being’. Fans of Renato Polselli's films will recognize Raoul as a police commissioner, whilst Fernando Cerulli, Daniele Vargas and Vittorio Caprioli are all recognizable from a string of minor roles in 70’s genre flicks. I also spotted Franca Scagnetti in a brief appearance – she’ll be instantly familiar as the creepy woman in Suspiria (1977) who Jessica Harper encounters in the dance academy corridor.

Overall, Being Twenty is very much worth seeing, especially for fans of lesser-known Eurocult cinema. There’s plenty of (full frontal) nudity of both sexes (ever wanted to see Ray Lovelock’s schlong? then this is the film for you!), social commentary, hit-and-miss humour and a real feeling of what Italy must have looked like in the late 70’s. Then there’s the controversial side of the film – the ending is genuinely nasty, the emphasis being on physical violence towards the two girls as opposed to rape and titillation, which would perhaps have been more typical in a film of this type. It’s certainly an unusual film, eschewing the more straightforward softcore comedy approach often taken by Italian directors in the 70’s (Sergio Martino for example) for something altogether darker and more serious. Intriguingly, Di Leo wrote a kind of prequel to the film, which was to have been called “Quello che volevano sapere due ragazze perbene”, or “What two well-to-do girls wanted to know”, and would have been set in the 40’s. It was never filmed.

Excellent review. Thanks!

Only thing I'll add for now is a little historical context. Guida and Carati were hugely popular stars of sexy-cutie comedies (still famous people today, especially Gloria G.) amongst an audience with a marked resemblance to the guys who do the two of them in eventually (in this movie). Using them here was a bait and switch and turning of tables that was doomed to misfire and anger the market-tested fans, who apparently felt both cheated and personally insulted. The ending may play like exploitation but it didn't function that way at the box office: forget censors, the folks in the seats of either sex didn't want to be preached at re: the dangers of living free and blithely unconcerned emancipated women's lives (living like sleep-around guys, in effect) or being medieval sexist-misogynistic thugs and brutes compelled to rape and stomp on anything that threatens their precious manhood.

Di Leo admits in an extra here that he'd gotten too cocky and hubristic having scored a couple hits with films that scored simultaneously with working class trad audiences, leftist student types, and the art house critics. He thought he could take it much further, and perhaps he could have with a different set of actresses with fewer expectations attached, but doing what he did to the icons he hired was unacceptable.

Not that I'm personally insulted or put out, mind you! Like you, I found this a fascinating oddity (though nowhere near as good as MILANO CALIBRO 9, close to a masterpiece). It's certainly compromised by a middle aged guy's perspective on youth and women's lib, but I have no doubt Di Leo's heart was in the right place, and I personally appreciated seeing a semi-accurate sketch of what late hippie Rome actually looked and felt like in those days.

More spoilers...


To date, I have only seen this on an old VHS Private Screenings tape, which, bizarrely, moves the rape and humiliation finale to the beginning of the movie, with the dubbing actresses providing a sort of "Boy, thank God we got out of that mess" voiceover bridge to the comparably lighter main story.

Can you give more detail on the DVD? I heard it provides both versions of the film. Are there English dub tracks for both, or only the "happier" version? Does the softer version have the construction I mentioned above, or does it completely omit the harsh sequence?

The second disc of the Raro features the 'American' version (English and Italian soundtracks available: the 'integrale' only has English subs). I'm guessing it's what you saw on tape.

Comparing beginning and ending of the two editions just now, I realized how extensively the film had been reworked. The movie originally had a long idyll on a hippie beach (one fully nude couple gamboling and letting it all hang out, and some solarized photography, and raga-esque hoe-down music, all rather Woodstock) where the girls meet up, and the hitchiking vignettes-gags that follow are more extensive, differently arranged in the narrative, and sometimes removed altogether from the rerelease.

The recut version has them on the road hitching over the credits, inserts a seemingly new scene with the gypsy-guru that Vittorio Caprioli plays stopping and trying to pick them up in his truck. I suspect this was shot for the original (it fills a gap in the story: how they'd found out about the commune they end up at), cut, and given a second life here.

Then comes the 'saved at the last moment' version of the final scene of the original. The original is reedited to make it look like the cops are arriving, the man in the suit and tie from the trattoria pulling up in his car to tell his goons to desist, can't you idiots hear the squad cars on their way (stuck onto soundtrack). In the original, this footage, placed differently in the scene, is the same guy denouncing the girls and reading them their punishment! The shot just freezes there an eternity (very bizarre and awkward, naked girls looking traumatized in freeze frame) and then cuts to them hitching again. "Thank God, the cops showed up in time!", one of them says (saying something else unrelated in the original)

The ending of the new one pastes in a fake 'recycled-bits' ending after the scene of the police bust and the heroines signing the release form the police commissioner gives them. Footage cut from the beginning of the original edition follows to create an upbeat 'on the road again' 'ending'.

There may well be other changes in the middle, but I didn't check for those. PS: As to placement of the horrific scene (spoilers have been dropped as a rule for this movie ever since it's been discussed on this forum, the main reason people are drawn to see it, rightly or probably not)...despite the absurd amputations and edits to make it fit at the beginning, it quite likely should have been there to start with, a bad roadtrip experience along the way rather than a distaff Easy Rider shock finale which Di Leo's story just doesn't quite support the enormity of. There've been plenty of hints leading up that Utopian or just plain independent alternatives to status quo are butterflies to be crushed on the wheel, but the tenor of the film is overwhelmingly so whimsical farcical bohemian (Lovelock, loveable junkie sleeping amongst picturesque garbage) that the reality check at the end just doesn't match...or rather, Carati and Guida fit it throughout, but their clownish companions who dominate the film belong to a different movie.