Un tranquillo posto di campagna

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 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.

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.

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.

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.