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TO BE TWENTY

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

TO BE TWENTY is Fernando Di Leo's greatest film, a polarizing masterpiece of Italian cinema that crosses so many genre demarcation lines that it's hard to get a real grasp on the proceedings. It is at once a sexploitation flick, a comedy, a drama, a road movie and a violent exploitation film. It has an episodic narrative and little in the way of action or interest but it manages to hold your attention by simply being beautiful. Much of what is written about TO BE TWENTY focuses on the film's brutal, unforgiving, soul-deadening ending and for good reason. The film's previous 80 minutes of light fluff and softcore fumbling around offers no indication that the film is about to tumble off the moral deep-end, something that makes the grotesque ending all the more shocking.

"I'm young, beautiful and pissed off". That's the mantra of both Tina and Lia, two sexy delinquents who spend their days wandering from place to place, unemployed and aimless, looking for whatever sex, comfort and fun they can find. They shack up at a commune hoping for some sex only to find everyone there stoned and uninterested. Tina falls for Rico, an ex-teacher turned apathetic stoner, as she and Lia fill their time by dancing down city streets and taking part in a documentary some self-important filmmaker is shooting at the commune. The guy running the commune decides to try and pimp the girls out, first as common prostitutes, then as encyclopedia saleswomen. Things at the commune are going smoothly until the cops raid the joint looking for drugs. Our two protagonists are sent packing, told by the police that they have to leave Rome. After hitching a ride out of town, the girls find a diner. They plunk some change into the jukebox and begin dancing, much to the amusement of a table full of rough-looking chaps. When the guys start getting aggressive, Tina and Lia walk out and decide to cut through the woods to reach the freeway. But the guys from the diner weren't too happy with the way the night's entertainment ended. They chase Tina and Lia down, rape them and murder them. The film ends with a long shot of Tina and Lia lying dead in the woods.

I have heard many different arguments regarding this movie over the years. Some people take it to be a pro-feminist film. Others take it as an anti-feminist film. The former looks at it as a celebration of female liberation with the rapists at the film's ending acting as a reminder of the misogyny that still runs rampant in society. The latter view the film as a kind of warning, the very epitome of the "if you flaunt it, I can and will take it" mentality. The former views the protagonists as women rebelling against the patriarchal norm. The latter would have women exercise restraint, to (as Bill Landis once put it) "act prudish as a defense mechanism". I find both arguments to be rather simplistic. I personally don't find either argument to be a proper summation of the film. If anything, TO BE TWENTY is a film about disillusionment. The problems of sexual equality are merely symbolic of that. It also would seem to be a tale about social responsibility as the dangers of mistaking your "freedom to" and your "right to" are brought up time and time again during the course of the film.

This may seem to be less satisfactory of a reading to those people who wish to paint the protagonists in either a positive or negative light but I don't believe Di Leo thought of Tina and Lia as symbols of female empowerment nor do I think Di Leo felt they truly had what was coming to them at the film's end. He takes great care to ensure our disgusted response to the violence in the climax. Even though our protagonists act carelessly and perhaps take things a bit too far, they are genuinely likeable and are in no way deserving of the violence enacted upon them. But, as we all know, if you play with fire you stand the risk of being burned. I have to tread a thin line here in saying this but - here it goes - at some point playfulness and flirtation crosses a line and you can never be sure if the person you're with respects that line or not. I don't think women (in particular) should ever feel like they need to "act prudish" or repress themselves but it is foolishness to expect anyone, male or female, to know the difference between flirtation and intent. So if you're wondering what my take is on the "whose to blame?" game so many people want to play with this film, here it is:

Everyone is to blame.

I'll explain.

Of the two protagonists, Tina is the more confrontational. Her playfulness masks a kind of sexual sadism. She enjoys getting men riled up, enjoys the tease. She has clued in on what gives her power in her society. It's her beauty, her sexuality. She says that she "demands sex". She is more of a man - at least as far as this film is concerned - then the men on display. Like many male protagonists of sex flicks, Tina is concerned simply with getting laid. The commune she and Lia visit would be, in any other film of this kind, a hot bed of sexual activity. But the girls arrive to find all the men stoned out of their minds, completely uninterested in anything other than tripping. The "free love" of the free love era has dropped out of sight and has been replaced with sexual apathy. When Tina and Lia finally manage to get laid, it's with two young men who last barely a minute. Tina is continually frustrated at every turn. It takes her two tries to rouse Rico and then, when they finally get around to doing the deed, he's only half-interested.

Tina's behavior is deliberately calculated. Her anger at her mother's subjugation to a low life father is her driving motivation. She delights in the embarrassment and sexual frustration of men. She doesn't seem to possess any guilt over her actions. She behaves, more or less, like we would expect a man to behave - and many men in Italian genre films do act this way. It is hypocritical of us to allow for men to have sex with multiple partners and escape criticism but call women "whores" for doing the same. This hypocrisy is not lost on Tina. The majority of her screen time is given over to her acting in a way typical of men. When she and Lia finally arrive at the diner and Tina begins dancing to the music on the jukebox, it is part expression and part flirtation. She knows full well that the men sitting at the table will be excited to see her dance. She understands what she is doing. What she doesn't understand is that the men sitting at that table are not the kind of men who like the idea of women acting like men. Sexual domination is THEIR arena and their subsequent rape and murder of Tina and Lia is their sentence upon them for daring to have entered it. Whether or not Tina and Lia had the "right" to do so doesn't matter. The film doesn't condone or condemn anyone. It simply is. Whether or not you feel the punishment fit the "crime" is solely for you to decide.

Personally, I don't think it was justified - I don't even think it was a "crime" - but Di Leo doesn't care about my feelings on the matter. Or yours. Or anyone else's. The climax of the film is incredibly powerful and sickening. The fact that it raises serious questions and provokes arguments and conversations every time it is discussed speaks to that fact. That the violence is perpetrated by men on beautiful women - and Gloria Guida and Lilli Carati are two of the most beautiful women I have ever laid eyes on - isn't all that surprising but what is surprising is that, for the first time in this kind of film, the implications are not cut and dry. Unlike most films of this kind, the violence doesn't provide closure. The film's final image lingers long in the memory and makes escaping the brutality difficult. We as genre fans are used to violence in film. We know how much fun it can be to see people get their comeuppance in the final moments. We recognize that it is all a magic trick and that allows the violence to be cathartic and entertaining. But here, in Di Leo's hands, that violence can be devastating and heart-breaking. TO BE TWENTY is hard to get away from and those final moments are hard to reconcile. There is no closure here. Only sadness and confusion.

Essential viewing.