In den Süden

I just saw the US premier at the American Museum of Moving Image last night [10/20/05]. Cantet and co. interweave three short stories by Haitian writer Dany Laferriere (not yet translated into English from French as of 10/21/05). Though the scope and themes of the stories differ considerably, "Vers Le Sud" is as shattering and masterful as Cantet's previous feature, "Time Out," and should similarly be talked about for years to come.

Cantet and cinematographer Pierre Milon have shot many incredibly complex emotional exchanges without relying on any obvious dialogue. Their confidence that it would cut together and 'play' so well on screen must be partially due to Cantet's having a co-writer who is also the editor (Robin Campillo). The story is told through subtle reactions, gestures and intonations ala "Time Out," but Vers's dialogue seems both more plentiful and more emotionally transparent.

"Vers" also contains more characters, incidents, and a more complex thematic scope than "Time Out." Where "Time" explored a single character's relation to work, pride, and masculinity, "Vers" explores 3 middle-aged white women's sexual and romantic desire for a teenage Haitian, black male prostitute. Cantet explores the central situation's inherent political, racial, sexual, emotional and age-related issues-- often in the same scene.

In doing so, Cantet / LaFerriere necessarily broach a number of taboo subjects: middle age women being openly sexual on screen, and being sexual with teenagers; women paying male prostitutes; white women with black men; women as one discarded, ignored caste, hooking up with another discarded, ignored caste (3rd world men of color); women giving sexual desire the same primacy in their lives as men traditionally have; the world's richest bedding the world's poorest; the willful blindness of the rich towards the suffering of the poor or foreign; American economic imperialism; the predatory nature of consumerist tourism.

In exploring these issues, Vers provokes a sense of moral/political outrage on par with the very angry, very moving "The Constant Gardener." The tourist women of "Vers" turn a willfully blind eye to the dire political / economic situation that drives vulnerable young men into their beds. To watch these women do this is infuriating; their desire becomes repellent, exploitative.

But at the same moment, we are also made to feel how touchingly human these women's needs are-- for love (Brenda), sex (Ellen) and affection (Sue). We experience their loneliness as achingly poignant, even tragic. During the Q&A, one middle-aged woman in the audience referred to the film as pro-feminist in its emotional honesty, and I agree.

The women's relations with their gigolos appear to be emotional two-way streets, albeit with a much wider lane for the Northerners. The women and young men do share affection; and it isn't hard to understand how the women could fool themselves into believing in the possibility of real love blossoming in these tropical, permissive environs.

But when disagreement or insecurity arises with the gigolos, the women's economic superiority gives them the final word. That the same characters in the same scene can simultaneously evoke nausea and tenderness is a testament to the skills of all involved.

The film feels very French in its tasteful restraint -- the sex is never shown -- and in the way it explores its politically charged themes largely through male/female relationships. The film therefore plays entirely as human drama, and never feels sensationalistic, didactic, or titillating.

I had a few *minor* quibbles with this great film. The performances of actors playing Ellen, Albert and Legba were pitch-perfect. But there were moments in Brenda and Sue's scenes when I felt them 'Acting'-- whether this is attributable to lapses in writing, acting, directing or editing is impossible to know. I enjoyed the monologues, delivered into the camera, but I thought they would have felt less artificial if another character had been written into the rooms with them, for the character to address. I also felt it lasted 1 or 2 scenes longer than necessary in the end.

Some have argued that the film should included more of Legba's perspective, but I disagree. Given the sensitivity of the film as a whole, the nationality of the original short story writer (Haitian), and in conveying Legba's emotions in particular, I'm sure that the storytellers made a conscious decision not to include more of Legba's perspective, and the film's structure is the stronger for it.

In fact, the film could only have been created by a group of artists working at the top of their form. Like "Time Out," there will not be a more complex film than Vers Le Sud this year (and I include my other art-house favorites 2046, Head-On, Last Days, Broken Flowers, Brown Bunny, The New World, and yes, Kung Fu Hustle). Here's hoping Vers gets a proper distribution.

Everyone despises male sex tourism. But there also is a female counterpart. This movie tells about middle-aged women, going to Haiti in the 70s. They give the native boys presents and get sex instead.

But that's not the whole truth. This is also about love tourism, because obviously these women have serious crushes on particularly one boy.

Is it just another form of imperialism or is it more complex? Why do we somehow pity these women, while we're condemning men in the same situation? This movie puts questions you didn't want to hear and turns things around.

I know a lot Americans guys travel to Thailand for young girls, and a lot German guys travel to Hungry for young boys. But I never know that sex tourism also include middle aged white women going to Haiti in the 70s for young black guys. That's a story a new film "Heading South" (Vers le sud) is telling.

Three mid-aged North American women (two Americans and one Canadian) went to Haiti for summer vacation in the 70s, soaking in the sun and their desire for beautiful young Haitian boys. They have what those boys don't have: money and social status. The boys have what the ladies don't have: their youth and bodies. When two of the three ladies want the same handsome 18 years old Legba, the vacation is over.

This is an excellent film. I love this film for its brutal honesty, its originality, its thought provoking subject, and its terrific performance. Money liberates these ladies' sexuality, but can money buy love that they really desire for? Isn't it interesting that these ladies wouldn't lay their eyes on a black guy back home, but they are lusting after these young men in the poorest country? What made the connection between them here in Haiti?

Laurent Cantet's Heading South/Vers le sud begins in the Port au Prince airport. A Haitian woman, with the greatest sweetness and dignity, implores a man she's never met, a resort hotel employee, to take away her teenage daughter with him so that the girl will be safe. The lady explains that her husband had a respectable position but suddenly was disappeared by the Papa Doc regime; now she is penniless. The man refuses to take the girl. Instead he meets a sad-faced, sallow white woman named Brenda (Karen Young) and takes her to the hotel.

Soon Brenda is on the beach where young blacks – the favorite, Legba (Ménothy Cesar), lithe and sweet; the older Neptune (Wilfred Paul); little Eddy (Jackenson Pierre Olmo Diaz) and others – accompany women in their forties and fifties, of whom we observe Sue (Louise Portal), a French Canadian, and Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) – who almost seems to be in charge.

There is something voyeuristic about the first third of this movie. The way the boys fawn on the women – and the women lap it up -- is more mutually exploitive, racist, political, more starkly rich/poor, young/old – even more starkly hedonistic than we're accustomed to seeing on the screen – so overtly shocking that even before the film has gone into release American critics have taken offense at it. Perhaps most shocking of all, we know this is the poorest and scariest country in the hemisphere at one of the worst times (the Seventies, yet these people are having immense fun, living an idyll.

Cantet is as concerned with the whole situation as he is with the few events that unfold; as concerned with the whole phenomenon of "heading south" as with Brenda's hopeless, perhaps embarrassing, infatuation with Legba, or Ellen's subsequent collapse, the trouble that befalls Legba – these dispersals and dispositions of the action. But the situation is such that something must happen. It's a situation that's satisfying to the participants but fraught with danger.

Human Resource/Resources humaines (1999), Cantet's second film and the first one shown in the US, shows a small factory where a young man who's just come in as part of management joins a strike to support his worker father – even though his father rejects the strike and resents this stand. The film sees labor conflicts in a very personal way, and identification (labor/management, socialist/communist) as flexible. Time Out/L'Emploi du temps (2001), the director's third outing, is also about work, identity, and masks. A man loses his job but out of shame invents a nonexistent one and for months pretends to his family that he's traveling with important new responsibilities, international in nature, when in fact he's just driving around vast stretches of country. Has he lost his job, his identity, or his sanity? A bit of each, because they're intertwined.

Heading South is also about work and masks and ambiguous roles. The white women's Haitian lovers aren't simply sex workers or "gigolos." At least one, the older Neptune, works as a fisherman. Free lancers, they aren't "paid" in any organized way, just slipped some money or given presents. In return the Haitians satisfy the women in ways that can hardly be quantified. Three years ago Brenda seduced Legba at fifteen, after her late husband had been feeding him meals, and she had her first orgasm with the boy, at the age of 45. (She, Ellen, and Sue address the camera directly to describe their situation. Legba, who says it's sexier to talk little and preserve his mystery, never does.) The film's based on three short stories by Haitian writer Dany Lafferière, and the action feels like an updated Somerset Maugham; this is colonialism, and it's people who take foolish risks and get burned.

I don't think the white women are unaware of the awful regime; they just look the other way. Several times when the camera's alone with Legba (that is, away from the white women), we see signs of the corruption, power, and danger close at hand and we realize these can crush Legba – even for almost no reason. When he's taken for a ride in a limo with dark windows we know he's in mortal danger.

There's a seeming contrast between the heart-on-her-sleeve, vulnerable Brenda, from the American South, and cool, sophisticated Ellen, a Brit from Boston who's fluent in French. Ellen cynically says the women all want the same thing – a good time – but in the end it's Brenda who goes on pursuing pleasure and Ellen who returns to the North, her heart and spirit broken. Brenda replaces Ellen; and little Eddy, who already wants to pair off with white women, in time will replace Legba.

Heading South isn't as clearly schematic as Human Resources or as intriguingly strange as Time Out, but brings up a wider and more troubling range of issues. Its up-front look at sexual tourism and the presence of the reborn and quietly magnificent Charlotte Rampling will insure that this third of Laurent Cantet's movies to be distributed in the US will lead to more recognition by the American audience.

Local reactions show Cantet has unintentionally touched American nerves. He's simply cooler about race, class and gender; he's not unaware of anything, but he lets us draw our own conclusions, and he enjoys provocations and ambiguities. He continues to be an interesting filmmaker who has a special skill at showing how public and private issues intersect, and Vers le sud looks as if it will win him both more friends and more enemies. By heading South, he's put himself more on the map.

I really don't understand those who find this movie boring or disappointing. The main characters come across as very real. All had needs to be met. The three were able to meet those needs because they had the money to do it. They journey to Haiti as sex tourist seeking out young men to fulfill their desires for orgasms, love and affection. It's really no different than men who go places like Thailand and other such places where sex can be had for a few dollars by those who live in unimaginable poverty. The film also deals with the disdain that the people who live in Haiti have for the sex tourist.

The film is well cast. Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, and Louise Portal well portray the desperation for affection sought by them. Louise Portal as Legba and Lys Ambroise as Albert are excellent as the other side of this perverted fantasy.

Highly recommended.