Trama

Mouth to Mouth follows the lives of four young people, trying to improve their lives in a harsh and unforgiving city.

Two 16-year-old girls, Carrie (Kim Krejus) and Jeannie (Sonia Peat) escape from a girls reformatory after a fight with other girls. They meet up with Tony, an old boyfriend of Carrie, and end up with a number of youths in a panel van, who give them alcohol and take them first to a pub, and then back to a house nearby. Carrie gets drunk quickly and has sex with Tony, who then leaves her alone, before two of his mates arrive and try to have sex with her. Jeannie intervenes and saves Carrie and the girls leave, though we don't see where they spend the night. In the next scene, the girls have a job behind the counter in a fast food shop. They meet Serge (Sergio Frazzetto) and Tim (Ian Gilmour), two nice country boys looking for work in the city. Serge has a car. The boys invite the girls for drinks at a pub. The four then go to the boys' boarding house for pizza and a snog. Jeannie likes the long-haired Serge, but Carrie is cool towards the more clean-cut Tim, as she still likes Tony, despite his treatment of her. The four go to a motel where they hope Serge's brother will let them spend the night in one of the empty rooms. But it doesn't work out, and so there is only time for a little hugging and kissing before the brother's wife kicks them all out. The girls then take the boys to a place they know, some old abandoned offices by the railway, where they have stayed before. There are some old mattresses and blankets and things, so the four sleep the night there. This becomes their base for much of the film. The boys spend the days looking for work, asking at business after business without success. The girls work until their temporary jobs finish, then take to shoplifting to get food and clothes. (The boys get the dole, but the girls cannot apply as they are escapees.) Carrie visits her father's house to pick up some clothes, but her father is away, and his girlfriend tells her that the cops are looking for her after her escape. The girls go to the pub one night and run into Tony and his mates, and they argue when the girls reject them. They reject a group of migrant men in a fancy car, then meet up with Fred, a friendly homeless old man they knew in the past who also lives in the abandoned offices. The four are getting on better and function as two couples now. They head for a beach outside Melbourne one day and spend the night in an empty house there. This continues for some time, but the girls get sick of stealing and being poor, and decide to try work as escorts, even if it might involve having sex. They both go out and have different experiences: Jeannie hates it even though she didn't have to have sex, while Carrie likes the easy money and decides to try it a few more times. Both the boys feel uncomfortable about the situation, but still haven't found work. Tony returns and invites Carrie to a party down the coast, but Carrie decides that she doesn't trust him. Jeannie tries door to door sales and then goes to visit her mum. A neighbour tells her that her mother had a breakdown and is in hospital. Carrie continues with prostitution but resorts to drugs to deal with it. She passes out on the way home and is helped by Fred, then Jeannie. Another day, Tony comes back with a mate to see Carrie but she rejects him again. Angry he attacks Fred on the way out, leaving him unconscious. Carrie finds him and takes him to the hospital, but the police followup and find the others living there. They arrest Jeannie and take her back to the reformatory, and confiscate their possessions. When Carrie returns from the hospital she finds the place empty. In the final scenes, we see Jeannie back behind bars, the boys coming to visit her, and Carrie wandering the dark streets by herself, looking older and more thoughtful.