Although it makes for no less fascinating a portrait of the S&M scene, director Nick Broomfield finds his usual approach to documentary filmmaking has its limits with Fetishes. Usually Broomfield, dealing with charlatans, simply plays dumb and lets his subjects explain themselves into incrimination, but in this film he finds subjects even more adept at role playing than himself; try as he might, he can never get the dominatrices to reveal anything less than a total commitment to their profession. Once the shock value of the subject matter wears away (which it does fairly quickly, even as the director trots out subjects with an ever-deepening commitment to humiliation), and the mistresses drop their guard a bit, their insistence on S&M's therapeutic value becomes quite persuasive. One client even insists that it keeps him from acting on his violent fantasies. Social value aside, the film makes a good case for putting prudery aside and acknowledging that for some people this kind of ritual shaming fulfills a psychological need incapable of being met elsewhere. In the end, even the eternally skeptical Broomfield seems convinced.