HEADING SOUTH: "Vers le Sud" French

Writer/director Laurent Cantet's film, "Heading South" ("Vers le Sud"), concerns three single, middle-age white women who separately travel to a posh beach resort in Haiti each summer. The film opens with Albert (Lys Ambrose), the resort's Haitian proprietor, waiting at the airport to pick up guest Brenda (Karen Young). He is approached by a mysterious older black women who begs him to take her young daughter with him, pointing her out in the crowd as the girl in the yellow dress. He refuses; she then says, "You can't tell the bad from the good" and walks away. This could be the theme of the film. Is it bad or good that white women come to the resort for sex with young black beach boys?

That a tourist sex trade exists for women is not commonly known. Most know that men from all over the world are involved in sexual tourism in South Asia, either as clients or operators on various levels. Girls as young as nine are exploited as sex slaves. Huge profits are made as most of the world looks away.

"Heading South" is beautifully filmed, almost like a travelogue, by cinematographer Pierre Milon: the white sand beaches, the incredibly blue, blue sea, the lush green foliage, the simple, yet comfortable accomodations. Couples sit at the bar; on the beach women loll on chaise lounges attended by young black beach boys and women who look to be in their late teens. The slim, well-muscled "boys" are naked to the waist while the employed black girls wear a kind of uniform.

Brenda arrives at the resort. she makes for the beach in her one piece bathing suit, Albert orders one of the resort's boys in white shirt and slacks, to "set her up." He hauls a lounger on to the beach while a black girl spreads a towel on it. Brenda ignores them and walks past. Her eyes are on a boy, Legba (Menothy Cesar), wearing a pair of red bathing trunks, lying asleep on the beach. She approaches him. We find that she had visited the resort three years ago and had seduced him. She has returned to resume the affair. At the time, Legba was fifteen. Ellen (a langorous and conniving Charlotte Rampling), in a black, one-piece tank suit watches with hooded eyes as only Rampling can. We learn that in Brenda's absence, Legba had become Ellen's "boy." Another woman, Sue (Louise Portal), looks on.

Throughout the film, each woman tells her story of how they discovered the resort and why they take young black kids as summer lovers, speaking to the camera as though being interviewed. Brenda's story is particularly painful. With her bland, blonde looks and stringy hair, she comes off as being totally pathetic, graphically relating her seduction of Legba. Though she'd been married, she says it was her first orgasm, at age 45. Ellen is a university literature professor who'd been coming to the resort for six years and considers Legba hers. Tension builds between Ellen and Brenda as they rival each other for Legba's attention. There's a scene where the three women sit in their recliners on the beach catting about the other women tourists, married and single, pointing out all the fat ones. Sue defends them (she herself is slightly overweight), saying that some blacks like the fat ones. Sue's "boy" is actually a man, Neptune, a fisherman, with a real job. He doesn't hang around the beach, waiting for handouts from rich women. The banter and play among the guests and black help is relaxed and friendly. On the beach, the women are allowed to buy the beach boys drinks and food, but they can not bring them into the restaurant. At one point Brenda gives Legba a new outfit complete with gold necklace, which Ellen says makes him look like a "Harlem nigger." In a wrenching scene where Legba and Ellen are swimming together, he tells her how he really feels about her and it's not pretty. Rampling is such a wonderful actor that though you can see how Legba's remarks cut Ellen to the bone, she laughs them off.

A subplot involves Legba and his life in town, away from the resort. Here Cantet gives us a look at the dichotomy between life at the resort and in town where half-dressed toddlers play in the gutters of unpaved streets. Young men play basketball on a cracked concrete surface, surrounded by lean-to shops displaying everything from food, scarves, and cloth bags to electronic equipment. A limousine pulls up beside Legba as he's hustling along a dirt road. He gets in the back next to a heavily made up black woman in fancy clothes. We get that she had been his girl, but was sold or given to a Haitian mobster who keeps her sequestered. Her only friend, she thinks, is the driver of the limo. She trusts him. Later, Legba is chased and shot at. He goes missing from the resort. Ellen and Brenda are beside themselves. Ellen blames Brenda for things going bad. When he returns, Ellen reveals just how desperate she is for Legba, as desperate as Brenda. Later, when Ellen and Legba are together, Brenda, after dosing herself with tranks and shots of vodka, wanders off and ends up at a local native bar. We sense an Aruba situation here, but thankfully, Cantet is too skilled a director and writer to go in that direction.

The film's anticlimax is tragic. Ellen leaves, vowing never to return. Brenda's actions at closing are surprising. We don't expect this of her; Sue, we know, will live happily ever after with Neptune, if only during the summer.

The concept and content of "Heading South" may keep some viewers away. The film is a window into what some may see as a shocking, secret world. Charlotte Rampling is one of the world's finest actors and her performance as Ellen should not be missed. In recent years, she has appeared in "Under the Sand" and "Swimming Pool". "Heading South" is in French and English with subtitles and is now at the Opera Plaza in San Francsico, The Rafael in San Rafael, and Landmark's Guild in Menlo Park. Check local listings for times.