Un tranquillo posto di campagna

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.

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 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.

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.