You ever watch a film that intrigues you on many levels. Heading South is one such film. French films being French, you kind of expect something thought-provoking, or at least highly symbolic and perhaps a little confusing. Heading South is not confusing at all, but very thought-provoking. In the late 1970s one summer, three women Ellen, Brenda and Sue (Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young and Louise Portal) while vacationing at a Haitian resort discover there is more to Haiti than sun and sex with the young local boys. They come face to face with the racist political climate of Haiti in the 1970s and the insufferable loneliness of being women of a certain age.

Brenda met Legba three years before the film starts, when he was 15. At late 40 something she experienced her first orgasm with him. Ellen has been coming to the resort for 7 years since she first met Legba, who she pays to “love her” as she confesses. Sue is a free spirit Canadian who’s convinced herself, as the others have, that her boy toy loves her but doesn’t presume to take him away to a better life as Ellen and Brenda do. It’s lovely to see a film where women in their late 40s and over are sexual and have casual affairs with young, very young, men. It is also interesting to see that women suffer from pathetic stupidity as dirty old men in their late 40s and older do in chasing mates too, too, too young for them. The women delude themselves in thinking that these young boys have true feelings for them although their affections are paid for in cash and gifts. Sound familiar??

The other interesting dynamic is racism. These White American women visit this “ethinc” world as most White Americans do. Feeling safe enough in their cocoon of imagined entitlement, they presume to know Haiti, it’s people, the young men who they seduce with money and gifts. Many women offer Legba a passport as yet another form of payment. Usually so they can take him with them so he can become their forever lover. But they assume he wants to leave such a “dungheap” as Ellen calls their native land. They presume to know so much more than they can ever personally and truly know about their young lovers and their young lover’s culture. Quite fascintating.

Heading South is a fantastic film that ruminates. Like a faint, sweet and spicy perfume, you’ll spend alot of time trying to figure out its make up. Multi-levels. Intriguing. Rent it!