One of my favorite pieces of filmmaking this year is just that—a piece of film. It’s Martin Scorsese’s The Key to Reserva, a supremely clever homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the acknowledged Master of Suspense.

This nine-minute film-within-a-film begins, in pseudodocumentary style, as Scorsese conveys an exciting new discovery. Three-and-a-half pages of an unrealized Hitchcock project have been found, presumably in a neglected corner of some studio vault, after decades of obscurity. Scorsese’s brilliant idea: to “preserve” the film by shooting the script as Hitchcock himself would have done.

“It’s one thing to preserve a film that has been made,” Scorsese declares. “It’s another to preserve a film that has not been made. ”

What follows is a situation that should be familiar to Hitchcock fans, a spy episode involving a man’s attempt to retrieve a key during a live orchestra performance. (The incident resembles a mash-up of North by Northwest and the Albert Hall sequence from The Man Who Knew Too Much.) Every aspect of the production is thoughtfully worked out, from the Saul Bass-y titles to the brilliant pop color to the sinuous opening crane shot. The leading lady, Kelli O’Hara, even resembles Eva Marie Saint circa 1959.

Of course, it’s a little too smooth to be considered the work of the master himself. (A craftsman schooled in the days of silent film, Hitch would probably have declined the use of a Steadicam.) But the film’s very artificiality winds up working in its favor. The fact that everything is so pronounced effectively puts quotation marks around Hitchcock so the audience can easily appreciate what a supreme stylist he was. (My favorite touches are the rear-projected fall from the balcony and the red glow of the flash bulbs after the newspaper camera goes off—a nod to Rear Window.)

The film ends with Scorsese back in his office ruminating on the success of the project. The camera pulls back to reveal an image from The Birds—an appropriate final bow.

Spoiler alert. A cursory look at the main website reveals the entire project to be a commercial for a Spanish champagne. But who’s to say it’s not a work of art? Few films I’ve seen this year feel so inspired, so alive with the pure joy of moviemaking. Isn’t that what it’s about?