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Heading South
Directed by Laurent Cantet
based on stories by Dany Laferriere
starring Lys Ambroise, Marie-Laurence Hé rard, Wilfred Paul, Jackenson Pierre Olmo Diaz
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Sex and politics: the X and Y axes of most movies. True, the grid-lines aren't necessarily obvious: not even the edgier mainstream critics write about Johnny Depp's profoundly queer sensibility in the Pirates of the Carribean films. And while Disney's output is crazy-steeped in social agenda (think Pocahontas), it's never regarded as flagrantly political. How odd, then-- and in a way thrilling-- to find a film that's totally upfront about its sex and politics-- and that's also being marketed as a summer amusement.

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After a somber opening scene, Heading South (Vers le Sud, in the original French) begins to play like Sex and the City on vacation. It's the early 1970s and three professional, monied, 45ish-and- over women-- Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), a Brit from Boston; Brenda (Karen Young) from the American South; and Sue (Louise Portal), from Montreal-- go to Port au Prince, Haiti, for the sun and the young men-- particularly the beautiful Legba (Ménothy César)-- who are available for companionship, dancing, and sex. The men are not exactly hustlers, but happily accept clothes, gifts, and money for their attention. On the Haitian beach, life is easy, fun, and sexy. The rest of the country-- now under the brutal dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc"), who had just taken over the country at the age of 19 on the death of his father François Duvalier ("Papa Doc")-- is a nightmare of political corruption, brutality, and murder.

Director Laurent Cantet's control of his material (based on stories by Dany Laferriere) is terrific. Heading South doesn't stint on the details in developing his characters, while never losing sight of the larger social framework.

The film begins with Albert (Lys Ambroise) a worker at the beach-front hotel at which the women stay, picking Brenda up at the airport. As he waits, he's approached by a poor, sincere Hatian woman (Marie-Laurence Hérard) who begs him to take up with her beautiful 15-year-old and virginal daughter, so that she has might have some protection from the corrupt police. Sex in Baby Doc's Haiti is currency, not only for sex work-- as it is for Legba-- but for basic survival.

But Cantet is not out simply for a diatribe against Haitian fascism or colonial exploitation, but is interested in the lives of the three women tourists as well. Ellen, the hard, cold rationalist has no problem seeing what she is doing: she understands her relationship with Legba to be a mostly-equal exchange of sex, passing affection, and money. Sue is a little more easygoing-- she's out for a good time and treats everyone, both fellow tourists and her vacation paramours, with non-cynical respect. Brenda, who's had a fling with Legba three years earlier, has seemingly returned to stake out a grand romantic plan that will rejuvenate her life after the death of her husband.

Loving it on the prowl

The heterosex radiates from every frame, but Cantet has a queer sensibility here-- sex is good, paying for it is fine, and the American women have man-sized sexual appetites (in some ways, they are iconic stand-ins for how gay men get portrayed in film). Cantet's view is refreshing-- if he'd been judgmental in the least about the women's sexual desires Heading South would be a disaster. The film's integrity depends on taking seriously the importance of desire (here, specifically, women's desire) as a vital life force.

But there's more here than a riff on sex tourism. As the narrative unfolds, we see the lives of these young men under the savage Duvalier regime. Legba, as well as Neptune (Wilfred Paul), and Eddy (Jackenson Pierre Olmo Diaz)-- who, at 13, sees the older men as role models-- are trapped in a nightmare of violence and poverty that's spinning ever more out of control. It's not that they don't want to get paid for having sex with these wealthy women from the north-- they seem to like it well enough and are excellent at it (the women certainly have few complaints). But Cantet will not allow us to think that things can be so simple. While the women never fully articulate that they understand the political situation in Haiti-- Ellen, in the end, does know what is happening, while Brenda seems oblivious-- the reality is that their sex vacations are intricately linked to the island's politics, and soon dire things begin to happen out of anyone's control.

Cantet refuses to take short-cuts or resolve the contradictions. Sex is life-sustaining and affirmatory, but doesn't happen in a vacuum-- certainly not the interracial, cross-class, cross- cultural relationships between young Haitian men and wealthy Anglo women. There's nothing condemnatory in Cantet's film-- no blanket statements; any message is specific to his setting and characters. But he's clear that sexual desire and activity are always connected to the wider material world. While he entices us with a sex fantasy of ravenous women and hot, Haitian men willing to make them happy, his final message is more sobering: the excitement and pleasures of sex are only understood fully by actively contemplating the world in which that are happening.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com