A Quiet Place in the Country (1968)

Please don't spend money on this.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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 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.

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 pace in the country' (1969) is a skillfully wrought, eerie treatise on madness; with robust performances from the two attractive leads, assured direction by, Elio Petri and a marvellously evocative and uneasy score from, Ennio Morricone, ensures that 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 mood, style and uneasy content. (special mention has to be made of the wonderfully Godardian, pop-art title sequence, given considerable pep via Morricone's avaunt-beatnik grooves)

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.