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Video Review
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| Producer: |
Ilsa Strix |
| Title: |
Where There Is Smoke...There Is Fire |
| Running Time: |
49 minutes |
Smoking Rating: |
5 Stars |
| Model(s) Shown: |
1 |
Model(s) Rating: |
5 Stars |
| Model(s) Age(s): |
Thirtysomething |
Lighting Rating: |
4 Stars |
| Audio: |
Talking/Interview |
Videography Rating: |
4 Stars |
| Nudity: |
None/Clothed |
Delivery Rating: |
5 Stars |
| Cigarette Type(s): |
Combination |
Overall Rating: |
Thumbs Up |
| Cigarette Length(s): |
Combination |
Still or Clip Samples: |
No |
| Smoking Types: |
Mouth Exhales, Nostril Exhales, Snap Inhales, French Inhales, Dangling |
| Reviewer: |
JeriB |
| Comments: |
This is a copy of the review that D.M. did on the Ilsa Strix "Where There's Smoke" for "Smoke Signals" which is the leading print publication for Smoke Fetishists. It was printed in the Dec. 1999 edition, Vol. 6 No. 4.(Reprinted with permission)
REVIEWS FROM THE DARK SIDE: By D.M.
THE BURNING QUESTION: ILSA STRIX
With "Where There's Smoke" we move into the darkest section of the "dark side". Ilsa Strix is a Nordic blond, with breast length hair, and a tight black bodice. She has a humidor and smokes both cigarettes and cigars. She has been called the Mistress of Sadism, and this video suggests the reason.
Interviews with Ilsa Strix indicate that she is among the most sophisticated and thoughtful of this genre's practitioners, and one who takes personal pleasure in developing elaborate procedures for pain and pleasure. "SM is what gets me hot sexually," she says. "Vanilla sex has never been a turn-on for me; I've always been turned on by power dynamics...with pain and fetish play." She has assembled a remarkable collection of equipment and paraphenilia for that purpose--worthy of a medical specialist--and speaks with a combination a combination of personal warmth and professional detachment about those drawn to giving themselves up to her pleasure. She says, "I won't deny being just a little manipulative and wanting to see just how far my submissives will go...submission is a gift to me." She enjoys the pwoer over men and testing their limits; but has taken CPR training to protect herself (and them, of course) just in case. And--oh yes--she finds cigarettes and cigars useful i!
n her work, as well as enjoyable.
The implication of her "Where There's Smoke" video is as clear as the tip of her cigarette. The video opens with closeup of her lips, lush with red lipstick, and the cigarette. She draws slowly upon it, and blows the smoke lightly towards us. There are several drags like this, giving us time to be transfixed by the lips, the cigarette so close, and her nicely manicured, professional-length nails with their clear polish.
Her first cigarette is in a long holder, as she sits next to the humidor in her dungeon. The cameraman is her naked submissive and we watch through his eyes as he lights her cigarette serves her needs. When she needs to tap an ash, she casually uses his hand; "ashtray" she says at first, and he extends it. But Strix enjoys being direct, and as the video proceeds, she simply says "hand" and receives it. The theme of the video becomes clear when the time comes and she extinquishes the cigarette in the same recepticle.
For her second cigarette she chooses no holder. She invites the cameraman closer to receive her smoke in his face. As she smokes, she describes some of what she done to men. She talks about a slow torture on a recent submissive, demonstrating how she held his eye open(Noe'mie style), and blew smoke into it, over and over. But she doesn't neglect her cigarette ashes, continuing to give them to him, sometimes having him eat them. "Does his hand hurt?" she asks, half sympathetically. She smiles and teases: "imagine how it would feel somewhere else, somewhere more...delicate. Someplace, perhaps, very sensitive. You know where, don't you?"
When the cameraman is reluctant to agree to what she has in mind, she simply smiles and asks him to "take it for me", and of course he does. As the video proceeds, she becomes increasingly direct with her words and actions. She asks rhetorically, if he is ready to work his way up to cigars--then doesn't wait for his answer. (I won't give away any more of the video)
"Where There's Smoke" is far from perfect; the cigar is poorly lit and her smoke lacks the sharp definition in videos by Coherent Light and SmokeVision. We may ask if the cameraman is really "touched" by her actions. But in many ways, "Where Theres Smoke" is a smoking masochist's dream come true; Ilsa Strix is lovely, busty, and enticing yet cruel. Closeups of her smoking are in the "right at you" mode and frequent. We see the cigarette with her lipstick on it, and the crushed tip. The camera angles are often submissive, looking up at her. Her words are sweet and searing: "Are you ready, my sweet?" She has a coffin shaped box for trapping submissives with her smoke, and understands key elements in the smoking fetish.
In one of her interviews, Ilsa Strix notes that she "strolled into SM with the nihilistic energy of punkdom, with a vengeance for the heat of things, with the power that comes out of being a punk rocker." That heat clearly continues to be reflected in her style. We hope she produces additional smoking fetish videos that extend the emotional and physical intensity of "Where There's Smoke." |
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