Heading South

last updated 8 January 2015

The image of Charlotte Rampling canoodling with an 18-year-old Haitian youth on the beach is 'œcharged with so many erotic, political, and cultural connotations, they are almost too much for one movie to handle,' said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. Rampling plays Ellen, one of several aging women who frequent a Haitian resort for the sexual favors of handsome young black men. Ellen believes herself a master of this game until her favorite lover, Legba, lands in trouble. Adapted from three stories by Dany LaferriÃ¨re, the film strips away melodrama and mysticism to create something more than a 'œglib condemnation of sex tourism.' The sexual colonialism is obviously a 'œtrope for American influence,' said Jay Stone in Canada's National Post. The three women each get a monologue in which they address what brought them to Haiti (sex). Albert, a hotel worker, also gets to talk about how much his father and grandfather loathed whites and how ashamed they would be that he waits on them. The only voice we don't hear is Legba's, said Jay Weissberg in Variety. The omission is puzzling. Yet Laurent Cantet has elicited top performances from his cast, and Rampling is 'œthe ideal actress to convey Ellen's blend of liberated carnality, Bostonian snobbery, and racism.'

Rating: Not rated