A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of The Last King of Scotland. The film was superb, but dissimilar in many ways from the film Heading South. Yet while watching Laurent Cantet’s drama of sexual colonization in 1970s Haiti, I couldn’t get The Last King of Scotland out of my head.
Even with an Academy Award nomination, The Last King of Scotland can’t gain an audience, I assume because the film doesn’t give us a happy ending. Likewise, or should I say moreso, Heading South has the same problem. The dilemma, however, ensures that the film’s textured characters and complex political subtext make Heading South worthy of seeking out.
Brenda (Karen Young) came to Haiti for one reason — to find and have sex with the same Haitian boy she slept with three years ago. The boy Legba (Ménothy Cesar) is now around eighteen and has used his muscular physique and charming good looks to woo middle-aged white women into giving him money and presents.
One of those women is Ellen (Charlotte Rampling). She’s the grande dame of the resort and Legba’s main consort. Brenda is at first threatened by Ellen’s relationship with Legba, but soon decides to throw her own wealth and personality around. As the two women compete for the young man’s attention, neither knows the trouble he faces in the Haiti that exists outside of the resort.
For anyone even partially familiar with Haiti's tumultuous history, you understand how hard it would be to make a film set in the Caribbean nation that isn’t political. Heading South never tries to achieve otherwise, but instead opts for large scale, geopolitical metaphors.
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