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"A Quiet Place in the Country (1969) is about an Italian painter who rents a villa that is haunted by the spirit of a young woman killed during WWII. Essentially, that is about it, as far as a plot for this film. Franco Nero plays the stereotypical image of a temperamental artist; arrogant and dismissive of others, his character is not exactly what one would call warm. The first part of the film is somewhat dull. Nero is shacked up with his lover (Vanessa Redgrave) who encourages his painting, although her motives seem to be more financial, his for the artistry. For whatever reason, he becomes obsessed with a run-down Italian villa and moves there. Nero is plagued by dreams about a young girl who lived in the village and was promiscuous with some of the males who still reside there. The film becomes more interesting as Nero tries to unravel the mystery of how the young woman died, who she was involved with -- and it begins to drive him into total madness. I won't give away the very bizarre ending, and I am not sure I could explain it myself! One positive here is the creepy atmosphere the director manages to set -- one can almost feel the spirit of the young woman throughout the villa. There are some very fascinating visuals throughout. All of that said, the plot is at times quite disjointed, full of holes and unanswered questions. Nero is fascinating to watch, and I confess I knew little of him as an actor. Vanessa Redgrave, always one of my favorites, is given little to do here. Her devotion to Nero's character seems to border on the pathological at times, and we get slight glimpses into their bizarre and -- I think -- unhealthy relationship. This is definitely not a film for everyone, but I found it interesting, despite its flaws.

Not sure if this is intentional - but the movie seems little artistic/weird & sometime disjointed. That's not necessarily bad thing - at least in this case, because it adds to to eeriness of the plot & setup. Nero acted brilliantly as a half crazy painter & other supporting actors too performed well. The end was very interesting & mostly left on imagination of audience to correctly interpret it. Overall, quite enjoyable.

A talented, imaginative painter(Franco Nero)is having trouble finishing any of his paintings (painter's block?). His matron and lover (Vanessa Redgrave) arranges for him to stay at a quiet villa out in the country. Instead of getting any work done there, however, he becomes obsessed with the story of a beautiful and promiscuous 17-year-old girl who was mysteriously killed at the villa during WWII. The older locals (especially the men)are equally obsessed with the girl,and they all end up holding a bizarre séance. But it is only the painter who starts seeing her ghost and eventually solves the mystery. Or does he?

This movie is kind of a combination of a ghost story like "The Sixth Sense" and an artist-as-unreliable-narrator movie like the recent French film "Swimming Pool". It's not really clear whether the ghost exists or whether Nero's character is going crazy (although the latter seems more likely). It is difficult to really compare this movie to a Hollywood-style movie, however. Whereas a Hollywood-style movie would have ratcheted up the suspense and eventually resolved the mystery. This movie starts and ends with pure over-the-top 60's pop psychedelia and only the middle seems to be a really coherent narrative. And this is really more like the more famous 60's Italian film "Blow Up" in that the mystery eventually becomes almost completely irrelevant.

The "Blow Up" comparison is tempting in that both films star Vanessa Redgrave in one of her more sex kitten-ish roles as opposed to one of her later, more serious roles (she did both, kind of like a British Jane Fonda). However,this film has a much more frenetic pacing than "Blow Up" and is really of a piece with talented director Elio Petri's other films like "The Tenth Victim" and "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion". Besides, this is much more Franco Nero's show than Redgrave's. This is an unusual role for Nero. He looks physically different--thinner and with much less muscle tone (especially compared to his earlier appearances in "Django" and "Texas Addio"). His character is very manic and seems half-crazed from the outset, and he has a lot of blackly humorous scenes like when he visits the dead girl's lonely, invalid old mother and just kind of helps himself to all her photographs. The supporting cast is good too including the very pretty Gabrielle Grimaldi as the "ghost" and Rita Calderoni (who later worked a lot with equally crazed if less talented Italian directors Renato Poselli and Paolo Solvay) as the maid at the villa, who always seems to be in bed with her "brother" and at one point gets painted-- literally--by her crazed employer. You may or not like this, but you certainly can't say it isn't interesting.

(1968) A Quiet Place In The Country/ Un tranquillo posto di campagna DUBBED PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER/ ART HOUSE

Co-written and directed by Elio Petri that has Flavia (Vanessa Redgrave) walking in while her live-in love interest, Leonardo Ferri (Franco Nero) is tied up. At the same time, he also has dreams about her stabbing or killing him and vice versa. We then find out that all of the teasing and playing was so that he can be motivated to paint more. Except that he often has these bizarre dreams, that would lead him to be attracted to a particular villa located in Venice while complaining about hanging around in Milan. Leonardo eventually manages to convince Favia he won't be motivated to paint anything unless she would either buy or rent the villa. Upon him trespassing onto the property itself, the caretaker Attilo Bresson (Georges Geret) informs him the empty and isolated villa can either be for sale or for rent. When Favia manages to get Leonardo the villa he was asking for, it is not long before he becomes more infatuated with the 18 year old, Wanda Valier (Gabriella Grimaldi) killed there said to be killed by war planes after she was making out with a German officer. One of the bizarre moments that happen is whenever Favia were to stay in that particular villa even for the time she was there- first, a roof collapses she was almost buried under the rubble before a book shelf falls toward her direction almost happening at the same time. And then when Favia takes a shower, a fire breaks out. And while his nightmares continue, he was at least motivated back to painting again.

This is yet another one of those weird movies where viewers have to determine what is real and what is not, where there are some scenes where it looked like the artist is attacking someone, usually his girlfriend, Favia but then it would show on the next scene she is alive and well. That because Leonardo is a successful artist that the more popular he becomes the more crazier his mind increases.

I tracked this rarely seen Italian horror on Polish TV and I'm really glad that I taped it.This is a truly bizarre study of madness,which reminds me Polanski's "Repulsion"(1965).The main character-a painter brilliantly played by Franco Nero is trying to run away from his strange visions.He visits an old mansion to find peace,quiet and inspiration,but it seems that this place is haunted by the ghost of a young girl.He slowly loses his sanity...This unjustly forgotten and rather disturbing horror film is a cinematic pleasure to watch for fans of bizarre Italian cinema.The characters are really weird,the musical score by Ennio Morricone is unforgettable and there are some genuine moments of insanity and creepiness.Elio Petri created an unique film,which should be seen by everybody(not only by horror fans!).Highly recommended.

In Milan, the prominent painter Leonardo Ferri (Franco Nero) is a disturbed man that lives with his agent Flavia (Vanessa Redgrave). He has sadomasochistic nightmares with Flavia and shows signs of insanity. He asks Flavia to rent a villa in a quiet place in the countryside to produce his paints. Leonardo chooses a derelict villa that belonged to a promiscuous countess that was murdered during the war and Flavia moves back to Milan. Soon Leonardo is haunted by the countess... or should it be madness?

"Un tranquillo posto di campagna", a.k.a. "A Quiet Place in the Countryside", is a film that aged. Watching it for the first time in 2018 shows a dated tiresome and confused horror film and the best chance to see the eternal Vanessa Redgrave, sexy and gorgeous, and her husband Franco Nero in the lead roles. But the screenplay is typical for a movie from the late 60´s. Elio Petri is best known as a great director of political films but his work in horror genre is quite confused and disappointing. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Um Lugar Tranquilo no Campo" ("A Quiet Place in the Countryside")

A hypnotic Italian thriller about a very imaginative young painter (Nero). He's popular, energetic, so are his paintings. His matron and lover (Redgrave) is going to do everything to make him do his thing. She's willing to create an environment in which he'd be able to churn out more work that's hot and expensive. He decides he needs a quiet place in the country to live and paint in. But as they find such a place, he gets distracted big time... This film is brilliantly crafted. Full of striking and dynamic visuals created by clever camera-work. Always logical, insane, but never "cheesy", "Quiet Place..." at times reminds of Fulci's "Lucertola con la Pelle di Donna" and Verhoeven's "De Vierde Man". Franco Nero's a dead ringer to Kurt Cobain in this one. He's so great in this role that it's almost as if he isn't acting. Highly recommended to fans of Bunuel, Verhoeven, Argento, etc.

Attempting to find some inspiration, an artist and his lover takes up residence in a haunted mansion in the middle of the country and becomes obsessed with uncovering the mystery surrounding the legacy of the woman supposedly haunting the area.

Frankly, this was one of the weirdest Italian horror films simply for that very virtue being present. The fact is that this one here is weird rather than scary, which is present in the opening with his hallucinatory visions and freaky experiences including seeing his double entice him towards a house, her double dressed as a nurse pushing him in a wheelchair or their apartment with its trappings of the 'Mod' lifestyle and their relationship in general is just flat-out weird which just halts the film to the ground. That makes it incredibly hard to stay interest in what's going on, and it remains that way for most of the movie as it switches gears extremely late into the running time into a more traditional horror mystery only that has to be built-up and it takes even longer to get going. This is helped out by the insistence of having him go crazy as the main source for the scares which is just wrong as the events used to get him that way, from the crashing furniture and spilled paint-cans to an incredibly suspenseful séance and his interactions with the town's residents leading to some rather unusual moments here. Beyond the concept of trying to find out exactly why he's being haunted there's not a whole lot of actual horror on display here. While the finale does have a lot of demented horror action in the house and the resolution of the story, that's still not enough to make up for this one.

Rated R: Violence, Language, Nudity and sexual content.

A Quiet Place in the Country is a rarely seen film, and that's probably owing to the fact that sourcing an English language copy is rather difficult. I was lucky enough to find one, and although I'm not going to rave about this film as some others have; it's certainly very interesting and was worth the trouble of tracking it down. The film is likely to divide opinion because it doesn't really follow any logical structure, and mostly relies on style and atmosphere to get its points across. Films like this have to work extra hard to get me to like them as I'm a fan of films that tell a story...and I'd say it just about manages it. The plot focuses on Leonardo Ferri; a tortured artist. He is haunted by strange visions and suffers from nightmares. Because of this, he feels he needs to get away to the countryside. He ends up staying in a country villa; but his tranquillity is soon interrupted when it emerges that the villa is haunted by the ghost of a girl. Leonardo then becomes obsessed by the idea of the haunting, and edges ever closer to losing his mind.

My main reason for wanting to see this film is the fact that it stars the great Franco Nero. It has to be said that this isn't really an actor's film as the focus is more on the visuals; but in spite of that, Nero still manages to impress with a performance that hits all the right notes. Nero leads the film and plays the only character of any sustained significance; but he does receive some decent support from Vanessa Redgrave. The plot is very fragmented in the way that it's structured and often trails off in directions you wouldn't expect. At times it's easier just to forget about what is going on and just watch the film itself without worrying about the plot. Director Elio Petri creates a surreal atmosphere, which compliments the plot nicely and helps to increase the potency of many of the visuals featured. The plot line about the haunting does not begin until half way through the film; although it is the film's only real attempt to tell a story. Even so, the film is a success rated purely on the quality of what we're seeing on screen...although viewers that appreciate a good story may be disappointed.

An artist named Leonardo (Franco Nero) decides to escape the big city life of Milan, and moves to A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY. He and his lover / agent, Flavia (Vanessa Redgrave) locate a beautiful villa in the middle of nowhere. Leonardo moves in and gets right to work on his paintings.

Unfortunately, he discovers that a 17 year old countess died in the villa, and suspects that her ghost is still there. Becoming obsessed with the girl, Leonardo's mind begins to unravel. Meanwhile, a series of near-fatal "accidents" befall Flavia. Is Wanda responsible? This all leads to the big finale, where the true extent of Leonardo's madness is revealed.

This is a rather odd, deceptively creepy film. It's an effective, late 60's art house movie that can be quite disorienting, and is best understood in the context of the period...

A completely novel role for Franco Nero, no, he is not a cowboy, neither a cop, he's simply an abstract painter, obsessed with sex, strange dreams and kneaded-surreal-erotic visions. The film starts with a succession of favorite paintings of mine too(Francisco Goya - The Nude Maja, etc., many nudes...) Then, Nero(Leonardo Ferri) is skimming along with Vanessa Redgrave(Flavia) some soft porn magazines. Then, Wanda, the beautiful ghost begin to manifest: being jealous on Flavia, she wants her dead. Absolutely normal, it can happen to anyone no, when a ghost falls for you, she does anything to have you, right? We learn later that in fact Wanda had not been machine-gunned from that plane, but was shot by Attilio(Georges Geret) (usually in other films, a very good actor). Finally, we must conclude that Nero-Leonardo Ferri is really crazy. OK, Elio Petri is for me one of the most talented filmmakers ever, he gave us absolute masterpieces like "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion"(1970)(one of the best films ever made), "We Still Kill the Old Way"(1967), "Lulu the Tool"(1971), etc. but with this "A Quiet Place in the Country" he simply failed, is exactly like those hundreds or thousands of giallo(Italian thrillers) made in the 60s and '70s, those with value close to zero.

I just saw the film in my phenomenally quirky local art house theater. It was presented by the film museum curator who said Ennio Morricone (who signed the music for the film- an early Ennio Morricone experiment) liked the movie and its director a lot, so was very surprised that the movie was not a commercial success on its release. After being exposed to the 2 hours this odd film unfolds in -at least, it feels like 2 hours- with an insane plot around insanity (no problem with the filming itself: it is well done and Vanessa Regrave is lovely to look at, but the "natural" music by Ennio and his team becomes quickly hard to listen to. To be exact: it is a cliche of the worst experimental music of the era), my boyfriend turned to me and commented with this classic line from Casablanca "I am shocked -shocked!- that this movie was not a commercial success." He is very funny, my darling boyfriend!

The canny on-screen pairing of Vanessa Redgrave & Franco 'Django' Nero generates some considerable frisson in this taut, atmospheric Italian chiller. This enigmatic, surreal Giallo is an unwarranted sleeper since 'A Quiet Place in the Country' (1968) is a skilfully wrought, perceptively eerie treatise on madness; with exceedingly robust performances from the two uncommonly attractive leads, assured direction by maestro Elio Petri and a marvellously evocative and uneasy score from Ennio Morricone, ensures that watching this Giallo-Gothic is time well spent. 'A Quiet Place in The Country' sits happily alongside 'Repulsion' & 'The House with Laughing Windows' in terms of macabre mood, eye-popping style and deliciously skewed content. Special mention HAS to be made of the wonderfully Godardian, pop-art title sequence, given considerable pep via Morricone's exquisite avaunt-beatnik grooves!

"A Quiet Place in the Country" follows a painter in Milan who finds himself drawn to a dilapidated villa. Upon renting the property, which he plans to restore, he learns of a young countess who was killed there during an airstrike in World War II, and comes to believe he is being haunted by her ghost.

This film seems to have an equal share of detractors and champions, and I fall in the latter camp, as I legitimately find it to be an engrossing psychological thriller that sometimes functions equally as strongly as a supernatural horror film. The demarcation between the two is what the film really bases itself upon--is the artist mad, or is there a ghostly nymphet haunting the property? This narrative device is old as time, but director Elio Petri manages to make it feel fresh, mainly due to the blurring that occurs between reality and fantasy.

As the film progresses, we are introduced to a variety of scenarios in which the tormented painter, Leonardo, has encounters and surreal visions that seem to meld with reality, to the point that the two become indistinguishable from one another--and I believe this was Petri's goal given the main theme at work. Even more startling is that the majority of these sequences occur in daylight, and still manage to be ominous and bizarre--the sprawling villa is atmospheric and lends an additional sense of unease. On numerous occasions throughout, I was reminded of the work of Robert Altman, particularly his more surreal endeavors such as "3 Women" or "Images," which have a similar DNA to "A Quiet Place in the Country." Its preoccupation with art and the histories of places also recalls its contemporary, "The House with the Laughing Windows," another film it predates.

"A Quiet Place in the Country" is perhaps most famous for its leading actors, Franco Nero (as the protagonist painter), and his real-life lover, Vanessa Redgrave, playing a gallery curator with whom he is having a love affair. Nero's portrayal of paranoia is solid, and Redgrave, though she mainly spends the film looking pretty or appearing in lingerie or nurse costumes (both in reality and in a variety of visions), handles the more dramatic material expertly. As the film reaches its climax, it leaves the audience with open-ended questions, though it seems to point us in a certain direction, and the final scene is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek jab that feels a bit at odds with the rest of the film.

That being said, "A Quiet Place in the Country" is still a solid exercise in unease that I found genuinely absorbing. It is not a perfect film, but it is a nightmarish meditation on madness and the supernatural that hits all the right notes. As it moves along, it weaves a spell that is truly bewitching. 8/10.

A mad artist can't separate fantasy from reality and takes us on a 106 minute, sleep-inducing journey through his own illusions, which include a vision of a girl who died twenty years ago in an Italian villa. Cinematic chloroform from what should have been a fascinating film. Had the music not been so frightfully avant-garde, I might have enjoyed this a little more. I got the point that the music reflected his inner turmoil, but it was just a bit too noisy and chaotic for me. Also, his imitation of a three year old who can't keep the same train of though for more than five minutes de-railed my interest in the story. Vanessa Redgrave, especially, and the rest of the cast give fine performances, but the movie just didn't work for me. This film was a real disappointment and I kept thinking what Mario Bava could have done with material like this!

We can call it a thriller, and that's technically true, but saying this falls under the categories of "thriller" or even "giallo" is much like describing any given Charlie Kaufman script as a "comedy": functionally meaningless. The opening scene is so wildly surreal and off the wall that only a scant few comparisons come to mind, like some of the works of Alain Robbe-Grillet (see 'La belle captive' or 'Glissements progressifs du plaisir'), yet if in the next moment we think the narrative may adopt a more conventional, cohesive form, we're proven mostly wrong almost as quickly. The premise sounds reasonable enough as a troubled artist relocates to a country villa with his girlfriend, only to experience increasingly strange and disturbing events. The way this picture realizes that premise, however, swerves hard and far beyond the bounds of the ordinary. Suffice to say that 'Un tranquillo posto di campagna,' or 'A quiet place in the country,' won't appeal to all comers, yet if one is open to all the wide, weird possibilities that cinema has to offer, then this offbeat, somewhat experimental classic is well worth seeking out.

We can admire Elio Petri's keen, eye-catching shot composition, Luigi Kuveiller's crisp, strongly focused cinematography, or Ruggero Mastroianni's tight, sharp editing, and it is right that we do so; even the care for lighting is notably fetching. We can admire the vivid, nuanced, far-ranging, and softly intoxicating performances of Franco Nero and Vanessa Redgrave, and their co-stars, and they definitely earn our praise. One would be remiss to not also note the beautiful filming locations, and the vibrant, creative production design and art direction; this is as well made as any contemporary works out of France or Italy. Yet for as terrific as all these elements are, and others they remain only surface considerations. In bringing to bear the story adapted with Tonino Guerra, however, and the screenplay co-written with Luciano Vincenzoni, it's how Petri utilizes these elements that makes the feature a peculiar, striking whirlwind, something unusual, nightmarish, and uniquely unnerving. Actually, I'm kind of reminded of David Lynch's 'Lost highway,' and 'Mulholland Drive,' for where those are a psychological thriller and a mystery thriller that make the viewer truly question not just the course of events but the movie itself, 'Un tranquillo posto di campagna' is a "thriller" that threatens to unwind us as much as protagonist Leonardo.

True, this flick is far less abstruse, and it boasts a much more discrete story, than can be said of Lynch, or Robbe-Grillet. Yet stunts, effects, and the very presentation of the imagery before us range from atypical to phantasmagoric, and almost always pointedly disquieting. Sex and nudity isn't simply titillating, or just part of the story, but is employed as part of the off-kilter tableau. That's to say nothing of the sequencing, itself toying with the line between reality and perception or imagination, or the places that Redgrave or especially Nero are willing to go to with their performances in exploring this askew narrative space. And still I've said nothing of the manner in which audio is exercised, for this is still another point of ingenuity in the title. It's very noteworthy that the late great composer Ennio Morricone left his stamp here alongside the avant-garde Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, yet the score is very much unlike anything else Morricone ever gave us. The accompaniment ranges from tense strings or percussion and synth-driven ambience such as what we commonly anticipate of thrillers, to discordant, almost atonal meanderings, to intermittent music cues that are all but indistinguishable from the diegetic sound or dialogue that otherwise occupy the soundtrack as part of the film. From a standpoint of the plot the proceedings may grow more cohesive over time, but the method by which the plot is rendered remains consistently kooky, and Morricone is right there all along, invariably adding to both the strangeness and the inescapable unease.

Yes, this could be described in recognizable terms, further including the psychological and supernatural. But it certainly comes across that the execution paints well outside the proverbial lines, daring to twist the thriller in directions that few filmmakers have bothered trying. Pretty much every last trace of these 100-odd minutes takes familiar facets and finds new ways to make them a more immersive part of the viewing experience, and the result is a picture more engrossing and satisfying than most could ever claim. That's hardly to put down other works, but when something is able to stand out as much as this does, we take notice. It bears repeating that this may not appeal so much to those who have a hard time getting on board with the more far-flung corners of the medium, but for whatever I may have anticipated before I sat to watch, those expectations were handily blown out of the water right from the start and through to the very end. I'm so incredibly pleased with how excellent 'Un tranquillo posto di campagna' is, and I can only give it my very high and hearty recommendation!

Franco Nero plays a Milan painter whose work is currently quite popular with collectors and commands high prices. His agent, played by Vanessa Redgrave, is also his lover. Thus you have a mix of artistic talent and its value as a monetary commodity that runs like a current through the movie. His obsession with soft-porn magazines reveals other aspects that result in the character of an artist driven by the kinds of internal forces that exert the edgy influences over his art that collectors find irresistible. The idea to find a quiet place in the country in which to produce more art appeals to him, as well as Redgrave, but for apparently entirely different reasons. The place they eventually decide upon is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a beautiful woman who was killed during an air raid in WW2. In a shocking weird seance scene we see or even feel, thanks to the talent of the director and all the other talent involved, her vaguely dangerous ghostly presence. Nero's insanity becomes increasingly clear as he moves psychologically further into the Italian villa with its ghost. On one level the movie is a disturbing look into his soul, but it also an analysis of the interaction of the commercial forces in the market for contemporary art and the troubled artist.

Elio Petri a writer and director mainly known as being a communist and maker of great films and only the other day I had watched this crime drama set in rural Sicily, We Still Kill the Old Way (1967). The funny thing is that we knew of his interest in the mafia, church and politics but made two films just before and after this one. These were amazing and very different, The 10th Victim (1965) and then in 1968 was the film I watched last night, this wild heady mix of art and sex and maybe a little 'acid', certainly some unusual music of Morricone. I understand that the film won an award at the 19th Berlin International Film Festival, although some critics considered it 'kitsch' and 'nonsense' which I suppose may not be unreasonable. But I love it and even though I don't usually like Vanessa Redgrave, she is pretty good in this although Franco Nero is usually great and here he really has a lot of running around and as some different moods or dreams. We started off at their home and he is bored with her getting him some many odd gadgets and then he is off, straightaway, or maybe not, to this strange and wonderful building. Inside we are not sure he is going mad or maybe it is the ghost of a sexy young girl or both. Later on it gets a little silly with a seance but it is all so wonderful and I think half the time I was watching this with my mouth open.