UN TRANQUILLO POSTO DI COMPAGNA [A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY] (1968)
Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna – released in the US as A Quiet Place in the Country – is an Italian horror thriller film directed by Elio Petri, based on the short story “The Beckoning Fair One” by Oliver Onions. The film stars Franco Nero as Leonardo, an artist who relocates to a rural villa with his girlfriend Flavia (Vanessa Redgrave), where he begins to experience increasingly terrifying, apparently supernatural events. Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna is notable for the fact that it is the first universally-recognized ‘giallo’ film that Morricone scored in his career – a sub-genre within his filmography that would later go on to encompass such groundbreaking titles as L’Uccello Dalle Piume di Cristallo, Una Lucertola Con la Pelle di Donna, and Quatre Mosche di Velluto Grigio, among many others.
This score, ladies and gentlemen, is Ennio Morricone at his most inaccessible. It’s a score made up almost entirely of string experimentations and improvisations, inspired by the work he did with his colleagues in Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, namely Franco Evangelisti, Mario Bertoncini, Egisto Macchi, John Heineman, and Walter Branchi. While I’m sure that, from a musicologists point of view, this score contains all manner of intellectual and complicated harmonies and patterns and performance techniques, I really don’t have the vocabuilary or intellect to grasp them; it genuinely sounds like 30 minutes of random noise and dissonance, plucked and struck and scraped with nary a melody to speak of. I’m sure it captures the essence of the film perfectly, creating an alienating and increasingly horrifying atmosphere, but as a standalone listen it virtually impossible to connect with.
If you want to listen to anything, listen to the seven-minute opening cue “Musica Per Undici Violini,” which essentially an overarching compilation of everything else in the score. Of the other cues, “Vuoi Essere Felice?” has a little more tonal consonance, with a hallucinatory dream-like sound; “Il Fantasma di Wanda” and “I Sogni dell’Artista” enhance the strings with moaning, wailing, ghostly voices; they become almost orgasmic during the middle section of the disconcerting but mesmerizing “Fantasma”. Later, “Delirio Primo,” “Frenesia,” and “Delirio Secondo” add rumbling percussive sounds to the pre-established palette.
The soundtrack album for Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna has been released several times over the years – it’s apparently very popular with musical mashochists – and the version I have is the one released by the Spanish label Saimel in 2003, which includes the entire 30 minute score, plus an additional 34-minute single track titled “Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna Suite,” and which is credited to the entire Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, which is weirdness taken to the most extreme levels possible. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Track Listing: 1. Musica Per Undici Violini (6:51), 2. Vuoi Essere Felice? (0:38), 3. Il Fantasma di Wanda (1:59), 4. L’Automobile Della Contessina (1:15), 5. I Sogni dell’Artista (1:59), 6. Fantasma (6:51), 7. Do Naturale (0:39), 8. Delirio Primo (2:36), 9. I Sogni dell’Artista II (1:58), 10. Frenesia (0:58), 11. Delirio Secondo (2:37), 12. Lo Spirito di Wanda (0:55), 13. Un Amore Violento (1:02), 14. Un Tranquillo Posto di Campagna Suite (composed and performed by Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza – Franco Evangelisti, Mario Bertoncini, Egisto Macchi, Ennio Morricone, John Heineman, and Walter Branchi) (34:39). Saimel 3994710, 64 minutes 57 seconds.
