Plot Summary: Lia and Tina are two beautiful girls who meet and realize that they have a lot in common. They are both young...

 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077191/


Also Known As: Being Twenty (Europe: English title) (video box title) 
To Be Twenty
 
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1467/mv5bmje3nzezmjeynv5bml5qi3.jpg

Director: Fernando di Leo
Label: Raro Video
Genre: Exploitation
Country: Italy
Year: 1978
 
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/7734/bscap0004op1.jpg

Avere vent?anni (To Be Twenty) ? (the title refers to the famous phrase at the beginning of Paul Nizan?s book, Aden Arabia: I was twenty years old. I will never allow anyone to say that these are the best years of my life.), was shot by Fernando di Leo in 1978. He also wrote the script which dates back to some years earlier and came from the desire to portray new female characters who had established a revolutionary psychology, and attitudes in society after 1968.

The intermediaries for this story are two young travelers, Tina and Lia - played by Lilli Carati and Gloria Guida, both very popular actresses at that time, who leave the Italian provinces and go to Rome to join a ?community? and are under the illusion of being able to live in complete freedom, especially sexual freedom, without restraints or limits.

They end up being faced with the crudest and fiercest reality. The film, which maintains a comedy tone most of the time, in actual fact distinguishes itself by the terrible and bloody ending?This unpredictable ending (it is so violent that during the shooting the actresses fainted) disappointed the audience and the distributors. The film was almost immediately removed from screening, cut, re-edited and then shown in theatres with a new ?consolatory? ending ? the home video version also underwent further transformations.

Di Leo had also written a sort of perfect sequel to the film which was never made, with Guida and Carati as the main characters again, but set in the 1940?s: ?Quello che volevano sapere due ragazze perbene?, (What two well-to-do girls wanted to know).

 
http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/6685/bscap0014kh7.jpg
 
http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/2378/bscap0011oh0.jpg

[code]File Name .........................................: Avere Vent'anni (Di Leo-1978) Release Ripped By Deanna .avi
File Size (in bytes) ............................: 869,956,650 bytes
Runtime ............................................: 1:33:40

Video Codec ...................................: DivX 5.0.5 Beta (Tahanea)
Frame Size ......................................: 704x368 (AR: 1.913)
FPS .................................................: 25.000
Video Bitrate ...................................: 1100 kb/s
Bits per Pixel ...................................: 0.170 bpp
B-VOP, N-VOP, QPel, GMC.............: [B-VOP], [], [], []

Audio Codec ...................................: 0x0055 MPEG-1 Layer 3
Sample Rate ...................................: 48000 Hz
Audio Bitrate ...................................: 128 kb/s [2 channel(s)] CBR
No. of audio streams .......................: 1 

Powerful, tragic tale of naive youth, 10 November 2005

Author: fertilecelluloid from Mountains of Madness 

Applying a simplistic, hypocritical morality to this sleazy tale, the filmmaker (Fernando di Leo) gets to have it both ways. His camera captures every lurid detail of multiple sex scenes and takes every opportunity to savor the fine flesh of the tasty leads (Gloria Guida and Lilli Carati). He then condemns the women for being "sluts" and brutally reprimands them for their behavior.

"To Be Twenty" is a highly watchable story about two twenty-year-old free spirits whose youth and naivety bring on their destruction. Ninety per cent of the film graphically depicts the girls in a series of wild and frivolous adventures. Staples of 70's cinema such as drugs, politics, the generation gap, communal living and free sex are thrown into a mix to produce an enjoyable cinematic cocktail that captures the ennui of the period.

The film's surprising last stanza sounds a mean-spirited warning to women who freely advertise their sexuality without any intention of providing it. It is a nihilistic, barbaric, angry scene of human carnage that echoes the darkest aspects of "Last House on the Left", "Straw Dogs" and "I Spit On Your Grave".

A recurring song is used to potent effect over the end credits and the lead characters are brought to vivid life by the talented Guida and Carati.

Recommended.