Fetishes (documentary)
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Fetishes ( 1997 ) Starring Mistress Beatrice, Nick Broomfield, Mistress Catherine, Mistress Delilah, Mistress Natasha, Mistress Raven, Elissa Wald (IMDB# 0116298) <ISBN:B00008WJC7> Buy it from Amazon.com |
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| Starring | Mistress Beatrice Nick Broomfield | |
| Directed by | Nick Broomfield | |
| Distributed by | Allumination | |
| Released | 1997 | |
| Runtime | 87 minutes | |
| IMDB Info | 0116298 on IMDb | |
| Buy it from | Amazon.com on VHS | |
| Buy it from | Amazon.com on DVD | |
Fetishes is a 1996 documentary by Nick Broomfield filmed at Pandora's Box, one of New York City's most luxurious SM/fetish parlours. The film contains interviews with professional dominatrices and their clients including the New York filmmaker Maria Beatty.
The documentary opens with black and white footage from an Irving Klaw film depicting models, including Bettie Page, wearing fetish attire. Nick Broomfield and his film crew then arrive at Pandora's Box on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and are given a tour of the facility by Mistress Raven, including the dungeon and the medical room. The rest of the documentary consists of the following eight chapters:
- Slaves
- Mistresses
- Rubber fetish
- Wrestling fetish
- Corporal punishment
- Masochism
- Infantilism
- Socio-political fetishes
The film was produced in the United Kingdom and was originally made for HBO. It was released in the United States on DVD, (runtime 84 minutes, in colour), and more recently as part of Nick Broomfield's 'Documenting Icons' box set. A full, uncut version with additional archive material is also available in the UK.
Fetishes is an hour & twenty five minute documentary set in an S/M dungeon establishment called Pandora's Box located in Manhattan, New York focusing on it's Mistresses & clients who pay upwards of a $1,000 for a session... I watched Fetishes on the British special edition DVD which has an intro by co-editor, writer, co-producer & director Nick Broomfield which informs us that he spent two months (not two weeks as the IMDb plot summary would have you believe) filming there & that he didn't know much about S/M before he started. Once Fetishes starts proper we are treated to various clips form a Betty Page film called Teaserama (1955) & Nick doing an introductory narration that more-or-less repeats exactly what he said in the now not so special intro on the DVD, great extra guys. After the obligatory establishing shot of a busy Manhattan street complete with yellow taxis we go inside Pandora's Box where Mistress Raven the manager greets us & Nick.
Fetishes then jumps from interviewee to interviewee as Nick & his crew film & ask questions to the various Mistresses & their clients. But you don't really want to know about that do you? I'm pretty sure most people who are contemplating watching Fetishes are doing so to get a look at some kinky fetishistic sessions. I personally found the session footage not to be particularly strong or shocking & rather weak considering what you can find on the internet. There are scenes of whippings, a brief nipple piercing, rubber & breath play, infaltalism, cross dressing, nipple clamps, wrestling, verbal humiliation, a couple of phone sessions & various people crawling around on all fours as I found this footage rather bland & shown in glimpses as the hand held camera jerks around all over the place. In between this session footage there are interviews with both the Mistresses & clients but they are short & apart from one or two exceptions not that informative, I found Nick asking various Dominatrix's the same "what made you want to be a Mistress?" question became tedious & the answers were almost meaningless. In fact I only watched it last night & I'm struggling to remember anything about it or what was said other than the session footage. Nick's comments about most of Pandora's Box clients being rich, high powered lawyers, businessmen & doctors really isn't that enlightening is it? Most of what he says isn't but that was a good example of the sort of commentary Broomfield provides. There is one part that I remember well, during a phone session the Mistresses were smiling trying hard not to burst out laughing & ending up looking very bored which didn't do them any favours at all. Broomfield like's to use classical music throughout probably for some misguided artistic reason or other. Fetishes is OK if you want a voyeuristic look at S/M at it's most basic level but if your looking for something with intention, meaning & something which ends up being thought provoking then Fetishes isn't for you in my opinion.
As I have already mentioned I viewed the British special edition DVD which contained an extra 40 something minutes of additional scenes as an extra, these scenes consist almost entirely of session footage & it's a shame it was dropped as I personally thought it was better than what ended up on screen. There is a long interview with the French Mistress Beatrice as she performs a session, whipping a naked man who is kneeling on the floor & then making him lick her high heeled shoes, eventually she describes him as a "shoe licking dog", as Nick continues to interrogate her, this sequence should have been left in even if her accent sometimes makes it difficult to understand what she was saying. There is an embarrassing moment when a naked slave walks in on another first time client & everyone has a laugh about it, not sure why. Mistress Delilah gets some extra scenes as she talks about having to leave the profession & piercing someone's body with needles & is more graphic then the nipple piercing in the finished film. As well as various other little bits & pieces there is quite a long scene of a 'slave auction' where Mistresses bid on slaves & get to keep them for a night I suppose, once again I thought this sequence was better than most of which that ended up in the finished product & all of these scenes play as they were filmed without any sort of inane commentary by Broomfield which could be a major reason why I preferred this footage. Definitely worth a watch & I enjoyed it overall but just don't expect to be any the wiser about S/M apart from a few tame session ideas.
External links
- Information about the documentary, including a trailer
- A Chat with Mistress Raven of Pandora's Box (NY Rock)
- Review of Fetishes, Nick Broomfield's documentary on Pandora's Box (NY Rock)
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