Heading south (2005)

Laurent Cantet is a director I tend to appreciate. I liked The Class, and Human resources is a striking film. So, I sat down to watch Heading south with some positive expectations. The film takes place in the late 70’s. We are presented to a group of women who spend their vacation(s) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Soon, we grasp why they are there. These middle-aged women have hooked up with local youngsters, with whom they have sexual relationships. It is clear that the boys are exoticized to an almost extreme degree in the eyes of these women: one line that is repeated, over and over again, “it is different here”. Their tourist resort is to be kept as a safe haven, tending to their needs and emotions. “You know money is not a problem.” 

The boys are not “professional” prostitutes (it seems) but at the same time, they are compensated for their “services”. This is of course one of the very few movies to depict female sex tourism. Cantet has perhaps not made a cinematic masterpiece (as a film, this is nothing special, really) but it is more than satisfying in attempting to put these women’s activities in a global perspective of race, class and gender. The three women all offer different perspectives on this kind of half-monetary relationship. Ellen (played with wit and ingenuity by Charlotte Rampling) is the cynic who appears to see through romantic dreams (but it turns out she is not as honest to herself as she thinks she is). Her friend Sue adopts a more playful attitude. Enjoy it while it lasts. Brenda, on the other hand, seems to have fallen romantically for her Haitian “friend”. What these characters have in common is self-delusion. They tend to see themselves as liberators for these boys, to whom they offer passports. The film could have dedicated a larger part of the story to the boys’ perspective. The information we obtain about their lives – a girlfriend, a worried mother, lethal threats – sheds little light on how they experience their everyday life with these women. What I would have wished for is a more direct way to address political issues.  It’s there, all right (especially in all scenes, in which the waiter Albert takes part), but it could have been dealt with in detail – instead of looking at the competition between two self-indulged women. But Cantet’s film is surprisingly low-key, and it has its merits. 

Laurent Cantent is one of the few directors that takes an interest in work/labor. This theme has been recurrent in all his film, and he deals with it in a very non-preachy way.