A Quiet Place in the Country

Leonardo (Franco Nero) is a celebrated artist plagued by nightmares which stop him from completing his work. His agent and sometime lover, Flavia (Vanessa Redgrave), encourages him to relax, so he buys a country villa. Once there he begins tracing the story of the previous owner while Flavia’s presence in the house seems to awaken something as she encounters one mysterious accident after another. Part ghost story, part meditation on the creative process told through the excesses of the 1960s. Elio Petri brilliantly fuses these ideas in ways that are at times shocking, yet thought-provoking in their investigation of art, sex and madness, set to an eerie score by Ennio Morricone. (Radiance Films)