Heading South (2005/French)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: C+

 

 

I just love how art films try to hide sex, than have trouble dealing with it when it comes out in the open.  With the inclusion of Charlotte Rampling as the lead, Laurent Cantet’s Heading South (2005) is a tale about older white European women finding younger black men at the equator and sleeping around with them.  Sure, we get the self-reflections of the characters, the women talking (sometimes in unintentionally funny terms) their sexual experiences in ways that do not quite work in the Cantet/Robin Campillo screenplay (from a trio of Dany Laferriére stories, one from each white woman) and semi-nude and sexually suggestive scenes that talk a line between narrative and titillation.

 

In one respect, we’ve seen this before in the Angela Bassett hit How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but the cross-generational aspect has the added issue of inner-racial happenings, which the film deals with to some extent.  However, not with the depth of a Spike Lee film, so alternate titles for this include How Eurowomen Got Back On Their Backs or Jungle Fever Mania!

 

This is not to oversimplify, but another good performance from Rampling and the young male actors and all the posturing in the world cannot cover up what is really going on here and watching the film spend 103 minutes denying this is almost campy.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is softer than expected, despite how nicely cinematographer Pierre Milon shot the outdoors and actors.  However, it is watchable despite its detail limits.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has just enough music and surround ambiance to make it better than dialogue-based dullness.  There are no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo