In Salon Kitty, director Tinto Brass showed an Authoritarian-fascist government exploiting the sexual secrets of its people in order for reasons of control and manipulation; in The Key, set in Venice just before the outbreak of the second world war, Brass shows sexual transgression as a means of escaping the suffocating quotidian world of fascist sexual-social morality, although that escape comes at the price of self-sacrifice and death.
An ageing professor of art is bothered by his younger wife Teresa's modesty and priggishness. He lays a plan to manipulate her into expressing her sexual side, through the use of diaries purposefully left to be discovered, erotic photography, alcohol and finally a stage-managed affair between Teresa and his daughter's fiancé. Yet setting the workings of desire in motion this way leads to things slipping from the professor's control: his wife becomes increasingly an agent in her own sexual liberation, his fascist daughter schemes for her own ends and finally the professor's own body escapes the control of his mind, leading to spasm, thrombosis and death. Yet the death doesn't seem tragic, as it frees both the professor from the evils of history which are about to be spectacularly unleashed (and this is a man who has been helping the Jews of Venice) and his wife from her socially imposed role of modest matron and submissive object.
Brass' film shows sexual desire as a looking-glass world (mirrors abound) in which values are undermined, roles are reversed and social propriety is challenged. As Teresa becomes increasingly liberated, she puts men in the role of providers of pleasure, gains her own enjoyment out of seeing them naked and even gets them parading about in her clothes: the professor's collapse comes after he has been ordered by Teresa to wear her knickers, stockings and bra and make love to her in them for because that's how she likes to see him. The film's narrative movement mirrors the story's progression: at first, the professor is the protagonist and Teresa is subject to the male gaze; gradually she takes over as the focus of the film, and men come increasingly under the naked scrutiny of the camera. Intriguingly, the taking of photographs is one of the methods by which the professor manipulates the other characters, and one feels that Brass is hoping that his photography will manipulate his audience, male and female, in similar ways. Also worth noting is the way in which Teresa's costumes chart her changes, so that by the denouement she is wearing pure white for her husband's funeral. Yet the end of the film makes complex the focus on sexual liberation for the individual, as the remaining characters are drowned out by history, in the shape of fascist announcement, songs and celebrations.
Frank Finlay is aptly cast as the professor, returning to Venice for the third time in his career, having hatched Iago's plan to sexually manipulate Othello in the Olivier film there, and then having been imprisoned in Venice by the Inquisition for his sexual transgressions as the title character in Dennis Potter's mini-series Casanova. Stephania Sandrelli gives a spirited and extraordinarily brave performance as Teresa, throwing off her art-house airs to luxuriate in the most lurid scenes of soft-core erotica, and having the voluptuousness and acting skill to trace her characters emotional and physical journey in the most eye-poppingly sexy and seductive way.
Beautifully filmed, designed and lit, and probably as near as Brass ever came to making a cinematic masterpiece.
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