Fetishes

This documentary of Nick Broomfield's, focusing on the S/M scene, and in particular, on a place in New York called Pandora's Box where ladies with names like Delilah and Raven 'entertain' their clients, is one-sided from the start, starting with negative preconceptions which it tries to convey to its audience.

However, this weakness aside, it is pretty uncompromising when focusing on the mistresses and their clients (whether male or female). I didn't get the sense it was poking fun, but it makes no attempt to understand or explore the scene either. So it remains fairly interesting but ultimately unengaging, mainly because of Broomfield's reluctance to go in there with an open mind and let the viewers of this documentary decide for themselves.

A slight documentary following the mistresses of Pandora's Box, a fetish palace in New York City. Broomfield has filmed some fascinating subjects and a taboo topic, but seems to have learned very little himself.

He still plays on his own ignorance to illicit a sort of repulsion from his audiences. People in the know will recognize the misrepresentation, those who are not will be effectively manipulated. The film is never about understanding or demystifying fetishes and the people who are into them. The subjects of the film try to push Broomfield in that direction. But his repulsion and lack of respect for his subjects comes through in the end.

Nevertheless, the subjects of the film have won out despite the director and make for compelling viewing. For a better, more personalized examination of the S&M scene, check out Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan Supermasochist.

I can't really say that the idea of fetishes appeals to me too much - my 'knowledge' of S&M before seeing this film has mostly come from the 'trash' cinema that I enjoy watching. I've got to say that this film didn't particularly teach me anything about the scene and the people that enjoy being dominated by 'superior' women that I didn't already know, but established documentary maker Nick Broomfield's look behind usually closed doors makes for enjoyable viewing, even if it isn't particularly insightful or informative. The film focuses on New York fetish club 'Pandora's Box', and we watch as Broomfield films various sessions with the mistresses and their clients. These range from rather tame whippings to more obscure sessions involving concentration camp domination and 'infantilism'. Nick Broomfield's approach is very objective, and he films everything without ever making a stance on what he's seeing. Even his voice is very cold and lifeless, and it doesn't always make for compelling viewing. Ironically, the most interesting thing about this movie is not the filming involving S&M acts, but rather the insight into the dominatrix's lives and their thoughts on their jobs. One of the mistresses, a woman who calls herself 'Mistress Raven' brings up a good point during the film about the director making a documentary about a subject he himself has never experienced, and that pretty much sums it all up. This film is interesting for the most part, but Broomfield's closed mind unwillingness to partake in the acts that he's filming ensure that this is more of an expose than an analysis. Still, it's something of an eye opener, although people that are interested in this topic won't find out anything new, and those that aren't interested in it are likely to find out that S&M is, in fact, not all that fascinating.

If you want unseemliness then you should see the film that Nick Broomfield didn't make about all the places he researched before dwelling on Pandora's Box. As it is the film, plays on the safe side but does attempt to draw on the underlying motivations for people's curious needs.

The film's conclusion is that the dominatrixes that staff Pandora's Box, a high class brothel on Manhattan's 18th St just off 5th Ave, provide a much needed therapeutic environment. Mistress Raven's pleasuredome is just a good place to let off steam and maybe understand the forces, often found in childhood, that led to your particular quirk. And no it doesn't always have to involve pain.

There is an attempt to categorise people's various addictions: Whether to fabric of one sort or another, corporal punishment, constriction, socio-political roleplay (Jews who like to re-create Nazi fantasies, blacks regressing to the plantation eg.) and so on. Like other attempts in this direction, such as Katherine Gates book Deviant Desires, the filmaker is not exhaustive in his presentation of the full breadth of fetishism. But hey! We do only have an hour and a half.

This film exclusively centers around dominant/submissive themes. It errs on the side of good taste by only addressing the more palatable female dominating men or occasionally other women scenarios.

In short, Pandora's Box turns out to be not such a bad thing to open after all, just as long as you've got plenty of money.

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.