Jay Brooklyn
Joined: 27 Sep 2006
Posts: 21884
Location: Brooklyn, USA
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 Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 2:50 pm Post subject: Heading South.Film about US women lookin' for studs in Haiti |
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Check out this article from Buffalo News
Exploitation is name of the game in 'Heading South'
By ANNE NEVILLE
News Staff Reviewer
10/27/2006
Click to view larger picture
Charlotte Rampling stars in the French film "Heading South."
HEADING SOUTH
STARRING:
Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young and Menothy Cesar
DIRECTOR:
Laurent Cantet
RUNNING TIME:
105 minutes
RATING:
Not rated, but would be an R for pervasive thematic elements and brief violence.
THE LOWDOWN:
Repressive politics intrude on the romantic and sexual paradise enjoyed by foreign women at a Haitian resort in the 1970s.
It sounds idyllic - middle-class women from the United States and Europe flock to a sun-drenched resort on Haiti where attractive local men woo them on the beach and in the bedrooms.
But the troubling undercurrents of exploitation and racism in this arrangement, not to mention outright prostitution, are just the beginning in this somewhat heavy-handed French film.
As "Heading South" opens, Albert, the dignified middle-aged resort manager who scorns the local romeos who flock around the tourists, confronts a desperate mother looking for a way out for her beautiful daughter. This exchange hints at the depravity of Haitian society under "Baby Doc" Duvalier. But the shackles of fear worn by Haitians aren't even seen by residents of the resort, including Brenda (Karen Young), who is returning with high hopes for a relationship with Legba (Menothy Cesar), with whom she had a memorable fling several years earlier.
Young finds herself in competition with the resort's resident summer lioness Ellen (played with lusty grandeur by Charlotte Rampling) for Legba's attention and time. With flattery and his physical charms, Legba nimbly navigates this feminine minefield amid the women's snide comments and demands for attention worthy of middle-school girls.
This is hardly a paradise for the women battling it out for the cute guy's attention, but it's Eden compared to the squalor and oppression of Port-au-Prince, where the wrong word in the wrong place can get a person killed.
The plot turns on a sudden appearance and some shockingly loose talk by Legba's former local girlfriend, now all but owned by a menacing colonel. When a man with a gun starts pursuing Legba, the women offer him a way out - a passport, a plane ticket. But could he even exist outside the resort's society?
Rampling is excellent as a college professor with straightforward desires, and newcomer Cesar equals her in every nuance of their emotionally complicated interactions. As the plot proceeds, Young's character veers increasingly into weirdness, and we gradually find out about the burdens she has been carrying.
"Heading South," in French with subtitles and occasional dialogue in English, is an absorbing, troubling, not-at-all titillating story.
e-mail: aneville@buffnews.com
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