The Key to Reserva

I have been a longtime fan and imitator of Alfred Hitchcock from day one. I opened up the file for "Key To Reserva" and I had to watch many times. As explained in the prologue, Martin Scorsese found some notes depicting a three minute scene from an unrealized Hithcock film called "The Key To Reserva". Scorsese decided to film the three minutes in the style of Hitchcock, basically the style of late 1950's Hitch ("The Man Who Knew Too Much", "North By Northwest", even "Torn Curtain") Not Marty style, Hitchcock style. Well, it was like Hitchcock came back from the grave (actually his ashes) and lensed this great piece. We have a hero in a blue business suit, ala Roger Thornhill, seek out a hidden key in an elegant theater box. It's pure Hitchcock, even down to the crazy Hitchcock logic (The key is hidden in a place that would be scientifically impossible. But we're watching Alfred entertainment us, not teach us.) Our villain hardly looks like a villain. He looks like anybody can mop the street with him, but watch it, still waters run deadly and deep. Throw in references to "Rear Window" "Notorious" "Saboteur" a Bernard Herrmann score, and you got one tasty cinematic snack!

Martin Scorsese goes to lengths at the start of The Key to Reserva to present it like it's buried treasure he's discovered; his enthusiasm seems genuine, even funny (i.e. when he goes on about if Hitchcock were alive he'd direct it, but he's not, so...) and then he presents what he's directed- missing pages from a few pages of script that were never shot by Hitchcock. But as the film unfolds, which seems like the greatest homage, as opposed to a real abandoned script, to the master of suspense ever made, there's the eerie feeling it is just that. I loved seeing Scorsese go into a kind of master's class demonstration of how to emphasize all of the obsessions, which were highlighted in the screenplay... And yet, it also seemed a little fishy. It wasn't until later on that a friend, who also saw the short, told me it was fake. Curses! And the birds at the end too were part of the gimmick I bet!

All kidding aside, it's a splendid tribute to Hitch, with a dastardly sense of timing with the scene at the opera, a strange amalgamation of the tensest of Hitchcock's grab bag calling to the likes of Sabateur (ironically, or just oddly enough, twenty years ago Dario Argento, a disciple of Hitchcockian suspense to a very-much Italian horror degree, had a sequence almost just like this one in his film Opera). Simon Baker plays the killer, and there's a timing to his movements that suggests something like perfect clockwork, a kind of divine madness that comes more out of technique then in storytelling. Then again, it's the story itself, however short, that brings it out as such. In the end it's all a big goof by Scorsese played on the audience, but a brilliant one, and he puts himself in the background knowing of his own persona in the process. Matter of fact, that's the real key to reserva, if you'll forgive the not-quite pun: process is the way it goes, be it timing a murder to an orchestration, or a dolly shot or crane move to just the right pitch.

And, of course, always with a knowing grin as with the master's best work... which reminds me, you'd never know it, but it's a wine commercial!

The Key To Reserva is a film buff's ten-minute joy drawn from seeing a born master filmmaker play around with a geeky little experiment. In under the amount of time it takes to get a coffee refill at Sitwell's, one sees a nearly complete suspense thriller, bookended by director Martin Scorsese's preface and reaction.

He announces his intention before we see the actual cut of the film, which is that he is trying to do justice to Hitchcock's style by doing it as he believes Hitchcock would do it today, as it is of a lost script for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. When we see the movie, though, it actually translates into the awkward cartoonishness of De Palma. However, it's fascinating for any film buff.

The Key to Reserva is a fun little Hitchcock homage that has Marty playing himself, which is also pretty funny. You get the best of both worlds, as it starts off as a mockumentary of sorts about Scorsese making a movie, and then you get to see a sequence Scorsese actually shot for this make-believe project. He pays tribute to - and replicates - Hitchcock well, and I think he's pretty funny here in the lead role (outside the homage sequence).

Sadly, it's also a commercial, which is always going to rub me the wrong way. I guess bills have to be paid, though, and people like drinking champagne. At least this is more creative than most advertising out there, and I think if we're talking commercials disguised as short films that were directed by Scorsese, The Key to Reserva is a good deal better and more inspired than 2015's The Audition, even if that one has the more eye-catching cast.

I'm not sure if anything else by Scorsese counts as a work of advertising, but I'd recommend this one over The Audition any day.

A must see for any film buff and Scorsese or Hitchcock fan. Chock-full of minute Hitchcock references.