Heading South (Vers Le Sud)

Some moments into the controversy-courting new offering from Laurent Cantet (Human Resources, Time Out) it hits you. Menopausal western women preying on the scandalously young beach gigolos of Haiti during the late 70s? Rivalries within the western ranks? The Haitian natives suffer the consequences? Hang on. This is a great big sexual post-colonial allegory. Didn’t I just review one of these things last week?
Other aspects of Heading South – a sexual and geographical term, geddit? – could only be found in a film featuring Charlotte Rampling. The female stars frequently address the camera directly to spout monologues – almost always an outrageous cheat - about “my first orgasm at the age of 45” or how blacks back home don’t interest them, unlike the youthful meat of the Caribbean. That the sexual tourists are female makes their transactions any less distasteful.
Though fascinating at the level of performance and subtext, it occasionally feels like we’re not watching a proper film at all, but for all the overbearing pretensions, Heading South boasts a nifty rendition of seething alpha female sexual jealousy. As the fur starts to fly, Ms. Rampling in particular has rarely been more icily repressed. Shudder.