La prima notte di quiete

In Italy, the gambler and professor of poetry Daniele Dominici (Alain Delon) arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months in the Liceu replacing another teacher. His relationship with his mate Monica (Lea Massari) is in crisis and he spends most of the time with his new acquaintances and gamblers Giorgio Mosca (Giancarlo Giannini), Marcello (Renato Salvatori) and Gerardo Pavani (Adalberto Maria Merli). In classroom, he meets the gorgeous nineteen years old mysterious student Vanina Abati (Sonia Petrova), who is Gerardo's girlfriend, and he feels a great attraction for her. They meet and know each other outside class, and they fall in love for each other. Their relationship leads to a tragic end.

"La Prima Notte di Quiete" is a cold, melancholic, cruel and tragic story, with magnificent performance of Alain Delon, perfectly developing the character of a desperate atheist man in existentialistic crisis. The beautiful cinematography and the music score are cold, as the environment of Rimini, Sonia Petrova is one of the most gorgeous actresses I have ever seen and is also perfect in the role of an young woman with a hidden past. The personal dramas are disclosed and developed in a slow pace and are very sad. Unfortunately there is no other movie available on VHS or DVD in Brazil of this great Italian director Valerio Zurlini, who seems to have been forgotten by our national distributors. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Primeira Noite de Tranquilidade" ("The First Night of Tranquility")