I watched this for a very particular reason: last year I began researching conversions to Islam among Westerners. I found that 75% are women between 15-24. That seemed a bit odd to me...then I read a French report on Islamic extremists--most were, surprisingly, women converts! Then I began thinking about cults...the Manson Family...mostly women...Branch Davidians....mostly women....and so on. Then there is the phenomenon of the kidnapped girls, some of whom had the freedom to run away but refused to do so (Elizabeth Smart, et al.). While watching "Beatles: Eight Days a Week," which is mainly about the concerts the Beatles gave, it struck me that virtually the entire audience was young girls, all hysterical. Why???? Then, when thinking one day about Obama's mother (married a Kenyan student when she was very young, then married an Indonesian), I stumbled across this sub-culture of women who search out exotic locales for sex tourism. It's not a new phenomenon, but I'm not sure when it began-- "Heading South" is supposedly set in 1979. Maybe the sexual revolution of the 1960s unleashed something???This is a good movie in the sense that it at least tries to take a stab at explaining the women's motivations. A second movie, Dutch, 2016, is "Benzess as Usual," where the son of one of these vacation idylls returns to meet his father. In this case, it's Tunisia. But exactly the same thing is going on--older women using younger, poor men for sex. And, as hinted at in "Headed South" in this case the beach boy is taken to the Netherlands and then Switzerland (by different women!). He marries both, but of course it ends badly. A third movie in this genre is "Paradise Love." In this case, it's German women on the beaches of Mombasa. The location changes, the story is the same. There are also numerous youtube videos on this theme. And then of course there are books like "The White Masai" about a young (!) Swiss woman who marries a Masai--and not an educated, Westernized one, but a native from a village living in a mud hut. It's beyond bizarre.

Heading South (2005)Charlotte Rampling has made some really unusual films for an actress of her stature, and if these movies are lesser in some ways, they are lifted by her presence, which only seems to grow more interesting as she gets older. Heading South is daring in at least two ways. One is its setting and incidental structure: Haiti just before the age of AIDS. But more striking, Rampling plays one of several middle aged woman finding young black men (or boys) attractive, and willing, sexually, in an out of the way Caribbean beach.This is edgy stuff for any time, even ours--older white women exploiting (or not, depending on you look at it) these available boys, all with a matter of fact, slightly giddy quality, laced with the usual jealousies and misunderstandings of love and sex anywhere. As if this wasn't enough for a probing plot, a more superficial series of events about the boy, and then the women, too. This second plot deflates the first concern, and sort of brings the movie down to something a little common, and though interesting, not on the order of the psychology and social dangers of the other aspects. Which is to say, there are enough really strange, disturbing, well made aspects here to make the movie stick with you long after watching it. And that's enough for starters. Give it a chance.

I found that this movie was often clumsily filmed: static long scenes, some unseen reaction shots, etc. -- almost as if it was hastily filmed -- as economically as possible. Also -- perhaps more for female audiences --, it was filmed in a «physically frustrating» way. Overall, too many important clues to the understanding and logic of the story were unnecessarily «hidden» -- specially the ones dealing with what really happened at the very end to Ledba. There were also unnecessarily «prudish» scene -- after all, this film was filmed in 2004, not in 1954 !!! -- such as the two frontal male nudity scenes in which the lighting (or rather the shadows) camouflaged the genitals. Either you show full nudity or you don't ! I'm referring to two scenes, the first when Legba pulls down his trunks and stands stark nude on the beach at night, facing Brenda. The other, when Sue's Haitian lover climbs into bed where she's lying with most of her body covered with sheets. Another thing I noticed: many people wrote about Legba'a «very beautiful» physique. Although his face is very boyishly charming and handsome, his body is far too slim (his legs seem almost as shapeless as long wooden sticks) -- ironical that his name is... LEGba ! Overall, he does not seem to be very sexually «inspiring» -- he has sensuality, yes, but not much sex appeal. Perhaps the producers couldn't find a more suitable actor...? The same possibility might apply to Karen Young. In spite of her great acting, she looked far older and withered than her mid-forties. And she's far to skinny also (with the same type of legs as Legba's). In the very brief scene were she finishes taking a shower, her very bony and flat chest is seen. But perhaps she was cast ON PURPOSE since a much more attractive actress would seem less convincing as a «sexual tourist» -- although she does play the part of a repressed woman from Georgia who had her first orgasm at 45 with Legba, when he was 15 ! All this being said, the scenery is great, the topic still very actual, humane and important. And there's the presence of the cool and always wonderful Charlotte Rampling who is ALMOST miscast : does a woman as attractive as she STILL is -- even at 55 -- «need» to «retribute» young men for intimate company...? But PERHAPS -- just a supposition -- for some woman, once having «tasted» the... let’s say euphemistically... the «close and warm conviviality» of a «divinely attractive» Haitian man... it's very difficult NOT to long to renew the experience... again and again.

Sex tourism is not a pretty subject, even where, as here, the tourists are attractive middle-aged North American women who have gone to Haiti for some R & R. As the film is based on three short stories by Dany Laferrière, a Haitian writer, we get the Haitian point of view, and not surprisingly at least one local, Albert the hotel manager (Lys Ambroise), does not like what is going on, even though his business depends on it. The gigolos themselves are rather more relaxed, though they have to cope with jealousies between customers and the problem of customers who fall in love with them. However, this is the Haiti of the late 70s, when the dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier was in power. Hence an air of menace lies over proceedings – it may be tropical, but Haiti is no paradise. In fact, this is rather a grim movie.Proceedings are a little slow, the director Laurent Cantent being addicted to long, static shots, and there is not much in the way of erotic scenes. The resort is not a luxury one, these are not wealthy guests, but the women can buy what they want here. Ellen, the Queen Bee, is outwardly unsentimental about it all but she too becomes emotionally involved with her beach boy. Charlotte Rampling, the vixen for all seasons, plays Ellen with both sensitivity and panache, while Karen Young does a wonderfully self-centred Rachel. She falls in love with the charming Legba (Menthony Cesar), with whom she experienced her first orgasm, at the age of 45, but of course it is a hopeless passion.I came out with mixed feelings about this film's message. One the one hand, the women are exploiting the young Haitian men, on the other the women are vulnerable and lonely, and non-violent. I'm not at all sure that either side is damaged by the contact, and one of the relationships, between the French Canadian Sue (Louise Portal) and her rather older "boy" seems to be a perfectly healthy one with no illusions on either side. Obviously there are risks for the women (falling in love with the gigolo seems to be the major one) but are they not entitled to some emotional adventure even in staid middle age?