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Heading South
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Rating:  - "Tourists never die"
Political colonization may be over, but it's been succeeded in this globalized age by a much more effective cultural and economic colonization. "Heading South" dramatizes this new stage in the unbalanced relationship between the "first" and "third" worlds. But the film isn't merely political commentary. It's also a parable about the deep pull of sexual passion and human loneliness.
Set in Papa Doc Duvalier's Haiti, the film focuses on three North American women, Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), Brenda (Karen Young), and Sue (Louise Portal) who come to Haiti looking for Haitian boytoys. None of the women have much use for black men back home (Boston, Georgia, and Montreal). But in exotic Haiti, as Sue observes, everything changes.
Everything does indeed change, and director/writer Laurent Cantet throws in a number of symbolic reversals to get the point across. In this film, for example, it's men, not women, who are sexual objects. There are several shots of male frontal nudity, but none of female. In this film, women, not men, are the sexual predators. In this film, it's the young Haitian males, not women, who can only exert power by flaunting their sexuality. And in this film, it's young Legba (Menothy Cesar), the boytoy wanted by both Brenda and Ellen, and not a woman, who's eventually destroyed by the desires of predators.
The women's exploitation of the youngsters is presented in a subtle manner. Cantet never overplays his hand. The women aren't deliberately exploitative. They just don't stop to realize that their manipulation of their boytoys is on a par with the way all Haitians are handled by the Tonton Macout domestically and the rest of the world economically. Nor do they realize that their reduction of Haitian males to boytoys is in keeping with their racist attitudes toward blacks "back home." In a deliciously ironic scene, Brenda, indignant because Legba has been refused service by a black waiter in an all-white tourist resort, remarks "It's incredible how racist [the Haitians] can be." Talk about denial!
Wrapped up in all this is the theme of sexual passion and the way in which sexual hunger affects personal identity and relationships. All three of the women are middle-aged, and each senses that waning sexual attractiveness is a sign of mortality. So their pursuit of boytoys has a certain desperation to it, bespeaking not only lust but also a deep, deep loneliness and anxiety.
Charlotte Rampling as the cynical but fragile Ellen puts in one of her finest performances. Alternately coquettish and crude, Rampling's range as Ellen is extraordinary. The film deserves a 5-star rating for her performance alone. Lys Ambroise, who portrays Albert, the maitre d' at the resort where the action takes place, is also superb. At one point in the film, reflecting on the sexual shenanigans of his guests, he observes that "everything Americans touch turns to garbage." But the irony here, of course, is that Haiti needs the ugly American tourists, who swoop into the local culture during the season, despoil it, and then swoop back out. As one of the Haitian characters in the film observes, tourists, unlike Haitians, never die.
A brilliant film. Highly recommended.
Rating: - More on sex tourism
People who like "Heading South" may be interested in a book about sex tourism in Haiti, albeit in this case men looking for women. The book is Naked in Haiti: A sexy morality tale about tourists, prostitutes & politicians. It's fiction, but set in Port-au-Prince. Enjoy.
Rating:  - Jungle Fever
Set in Haiti during the reign of Baby Doc Duvalier, Laurent Cantet's (the unusual, quietly persuasive "Time Out")"Heading South" ("Vers le Sud") is an erotic fairy-tale in many ways: the "noble," pliant natives in the person of Legba (the excellent Menothy Cesar), rich bored white women looking for a summer vacation of good times, hot beaches, cool drinks and hot sex.
The story features three such women: the mercurial, experienced at the hows and whys of Haiti and its beach boys Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), the basically depressed and debauched Brenda (Karen Young) and the wise, knows the scoop, been there, done that and wants to do it again French Canadian, Sue (Louise Portal). All three have been to Haiti previously and all, for better or worse, are back as this film begins.
Without a doubt the center of Ellen and Brenda's attention is the charismatic Legba: coal black, wide smile, welcoming, willing and emotionally and physically available at all times for both of them...a neat trick as its hard enough to keep one woman happy, but two? But human beings being human beings things go awry pretty quickly.
On the surface it would seem that Legba is being manipulated and used but on closer inspection it is Legba who holds all the cards and he deals them as he sees fit. Legba is in charge and it is Ellen and Brenda who willingly do his bidding. And Menothy Cesar's Legba is more that up to all this attention and scrutiny: his Legba is wise, intelligent, thoughtful, loving, family oriented...not just a piece of meat, in other words, not available to the highest bidder.
The young, virile Haitians are the prizes in Cantet's heady, jasmine scented, tropical world and they use their youthful potency and attractiveness as the currency that will translate into a one-way ticket to a life out of their everyday poverty and squalor.
Rating:  - Exploitation turned into chick flick
A film about bourgoise aging Europeans using their wealth and power to have sex with semi-literate, uneducated poverty stricken third world locals? Surely a lengthy diatrabe against the sex tourism industry and a call to arms for the strengthing of the law against such evil predators? No, this film glosses over any issues of exploitation and abuse and tries in fact to be more of a romantic chick flick. Then surely this film must have caused howls of outrage upon release, pickets outside of cinemas etc? No, calm down everybody, this is the story of 3 aging white women who go to Haiti to take advantage of the bodies of poverty stricken, uneducated third world black men, and hence its perfectly fine, in fact a touching portrayal of the angst ridden lonely white middle-aged Europen female, who are tragically discovering that all the best black bodies in Europe are having sex with the younger, fitter white girls.
Rating: - Tourists in love and lust
A smart, sexy, ultimately somber drama about three middle-aged women of the 1970s who vacation in Haiti in order to sleep with the local youth. Newcomer Menothy Cesar was justly honored at the Venice film festival for his role as the hottest young native on the beach. Charlotte Rampling does fine work as a jealous but cynical sex tourist -- Rampling's pretty much in the league of those great English actresses we're always honoring. Also of note is Karen Young of "Law & Order," who takes center stage midway through the film.
"Heading South" is in French and English, subtitled, with the players weaving in and out of the languages. Genius' disc looks and sounds good but has no extras. Disappointing because there's plenty to explore in the unsettling issues the 2005 film raised about cluless Yankee tourism in the third world. Highly recommended, but for thoughtful viewers only -- the film is about sex, but it's not all that sexy, and takes its time setting up the main action. "Time Out" is an equally good and similarly toned movie from "Heading South's" French director, Laurent Cantet.
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