ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

FRENCH DIRECTOR Laurent Cantet has built an international reputation on small, keenly observed tales of work place pressures and personal crises like ‘Time Out’ (2001).

In ‘Heading South’, he attempts a broader canvas and a more ambitious drama that deals with colonialism, racism and oppression. It works largely because he maintains a human interest in the characters caught up in the sex trade that flourished in 1970s Haiti.

Based on a trio of short stories by novelist Dany Laferriere, ‘Heading South’ tells of the affluent white women who travelled to Haiti seeking the favours of handsome young black boys.

Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) is a 55-year-old professor of French from Boston who is queen bee of the women who congregate at one of the tourist resorts. Brenda (Karen Young) is an American divorcee from Georgia.

Both women are beguiled by the charms of smiling, biddable eighteen year-old Legba (Menothy Cesar), and neither of them has the slightest notion of the life he leads under the brutal, dangerous regime of Baby Doc Duvalier.

Their friend Sue (Louise Portal) has a mundane job in Montreal, rarely socialises with her colleagues and embraces Haiti as her great escape.

‘Heading South’ depicts a world in which everything works as long as nobody breaks the rules. It conveys the selfish indifference of foreigners to the worlds they invade and the consequences for those who live there.

It is a political film, but one that works best in its focus on these lonely women, the youth-obsessed world that oppresses them, and the price they are willing to pay for a taste of love.

Selected nationwide release
Director: Laurent Cantet
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal, Menothy Cesar, Lys Ambroise
Screenwriter: Laurent Cantet, Robin Campillo based on La Chair Du Maitre by Dany Laferriere
Certificate: 15
Running time: 107 mins
Country: France/Canada
Year: 2005

© Allan Hunter, 2006