Directed in 1983 by Tinto Brass, the grand master of Italian eroticism to whom we owe the famous bacchanalian orgies of Caligula, The Key is the spicy adaptation of a work by Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki, transposed in Venice during the pre-war period.
The Key studies the subjacent mechanisms of a marriage without restrictions, between Nino (Frank Finlay), a mature man, and Teresa (Stefania Sandrelli from Jamon Jamon), a much younger woman. Knowing he cannot satisfy her, through a private diary Nino gives his blessing to his wife, letting her satisfy her sexual appetite through multiples escapades with his son-in-law.
The copious Teresa takes us through the city, its alleys, its banks and more particularly its bedrooms, taken to her adventures by the music, sometimes classical, sometimes upbeat by Ennio Morricone, with a bourgeois Italy on the road to succumbing to fascism in the background.
Situated in the grand tradition of libertine literature, The Key benefits from a classy production and a careful cinematography, attempting to describe the relationship of this couple and the social mores of the period. The film is based around a narrative in which various erotic interludes are intercalated. The director's approach is stylistic, from framing to the use of reflection in the generally oval mirrors, a recurring process found in Miranda and All Ladies Do It. The mise en scène completely embraces the beauty of the city, oscillating between the melodrama of a classic novel, showing off and eroticism.
If in the background the film shows the rise of Fascism and the entry into imminent war, it also tackles the problems of religion and the concept of sin. Like Caligula, The Key offers a strange marriage between social mores, history and sexuality, perfectly incarnating this Italian erotic current to which Giuseppe Tornatore recently paid homage to in Malèna.
