The Key: Der Schlüssel

As usual with Brass, this is a very classy sex film, with Hollywood-class production values. (This, I might add, is a rare exception, not the rule, among other sex-film makers. Radley Metzger is the only other director I can think of offhand whose sex films invariably have great production values.). Stefania Sandrelli is an absolutely stunning woman, with a gorgeously filled-out body, unlike the skinny-jinnies that many other directors are fond of. The film is set in Venice in 1940 and the locales are beautiful, while at the same time focusing on a "native's Venice," rather than the few over-photographed canals and churches one generally sees.

But the people who did the U.S. version DVD are incompetents, unfortunately. This is only the second DVD that I have watched where the brightness/contrast were so badly mangled in making the transfer that the film is unwatchable until one moves his controls way off their ISF-calibrated positions. To be precise, it is the second-worst. The worst has been the total butchering of Antonioni's "La Notte", where even moving the controls to their limit cannot produce a decent picture.

Good movie to watch for especially the director tinto brass his capability of making every movie is great and he is the best.

This DVD had been calling out to me from the cult section of my local video store for about two months before I rented it. The cover art of Stefania projects an allure that is only the begining of a very profound experience. Brass manages to create a film that doesn't make some epic statement of love, society and relationships. Instead he presents a rather odd and erotic situation that makes you think and feel (in various ways) the gravity of the characters situations. The film is also not afraid to come accross as a little silly at times.

Don't be mistaken, this is first and foremost and erotic movie, but it manages something masterful in that genre. Tinto Brass has constructed a very nice platform for sensual expression in this film. I wouldn't advise seeing it with your local bible study group, but it isn't frat boy tissue party material either. If you are open to nudity and sensuality this could be just the movie to share with your partner on a night alone together. The sets and the actors are well done, but you still get to see plenty of sex. Tinto's Key is the perfect movie to potentially unlock those who are "one the fence" when it comes to erotic cinema.

This is a most accomplished and underrated film from Tinto Brass. There are several reasons why the very mention of the director's name will cause many to stop reading right now. His association with Caligula and Salon Kitty and of course his later joyfully, and uncompromisingly erotic later works do not suggest this might be a 'serious' film maker. However, for me, the most difficult aspect was coming to terms with the fact that this has been transposed from the writer, Junichiro Tanizaki's Japanese homeland to a wintry Venice. The whole notion of a couple each keeping a sexual diary (locked up but knowingly made available) as a way of communicating their hopes and desires is so not the way we consider Italians likely to behave. But, never mind, the film is great enough to overcome this and in no time I was under the spell of the beautiful and prestigious actress, Stefania Sandrelli and to a lesser extent by Frank Finlay. I should also clarify the point that this fairly explicit film is about eroticism and not in the main erotic itself. Mr Brass does, of course, indulge himself quite a few lingering shots of certain parts of Sandrelli's anatomy but I'm sure nobody would grudge him that, certainly not I.

Just from the opening scene it's evident that Tinto Brass is in a class of his own as a filmmaker. A beautifully shot period piece in which an ageing husband gets aroused by his wife falling for her daughter's boyfriend (kind of a ménage a quatre), simply because it arouses him to see his wife aroused. I'm not into cuckolding, but it's actually a sweet, romantic film in a way, just with a lot of visual fawning over women's exposed buttocks. Tinto Brass is like that. I've heard about him but not really seen much so far. I'm glad this is beginning to change.