The film is rich, cultured and slightly tiresome.
Comment
07/08/06
Heading South (2006)
68 %
Reviews Counted: 79 Fresh: 54 Rotten:25 Average Rating: 6.7/10
Consensus:
As touching as it is disturbing, Heading South is an unconventional exploration of desire and longing, with superb performances and direction.
Rated: 15
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Theatrical Release: 07-07-2006
Synopsis: Laurent Cantet's feature film stars Charlotte Rampling and is set in 1970s Haiti. The film examines a time and place in which wealthy women from the east headed to the country in search of sexual fulfillment among its young male population. [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal
Director: Laurent Cantet
Reviews
Top Critic
As a glimpse into a curious subculture this provokes interest, but in dramatic and political terms it’s a missed opportunity.
07/07/06
Top Critic
Heading South is a beautifully shot, superbly acted, thought-provoking and ultimately moving film with superb performances from all concerned.
07/06/06
It’s a delight; an entertaining, moving, audacious and stimulating conversation about happiness, love, jealousy, fear, race, sex, class, and social and colonial oppression -- in short, the relationship between the personal and the political.
07/06/06
Top Critic
Heading South is a well-crafted adaptation of three short stories about rich, white, middle-aged North American women travelling through 70s Haiti in search of no-strings sex with young black men.
07/04/06
Top Critic
What Heading South says through careful omission or brief allusion is often more interesting than what it says on the clunky surface.
06/09/08
Erotic drama that probes lust, a police state and exploitation in the idyllic sunny climes of Haiti.
04/18/08
It also boasts another rich performance by Charlotte Rampling who continues to grow more interesting as an actress.
03/26/08
Una película lúcida y algo desconcertante sobre los deseos y fantasías de un trío de mujeres en vacaciones, con el trasfondo de la dura realidad haitiana del régimen de Duvalier.
03/22/07
This fascinating flick, using physical desire as a metaphor, examines political problems plaguing Haiti in the Seventies while simultaneously exploring pleasure purely from an older woman's point-of-view.
02/04/07
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01/06/07
While an important message is at the movie's core, Cantet just can't find a way to make us care.
01/04/07
Hot sex in the Haitian sun is the main thrust of Laurent Cantet's Heading South, but melancholy and loneliness are the film's key emotions.
12/14/06
... a shot of reality disguised as an umbrella drink, and is as uncomfortable an experience as having sand stuck in your swimming suit.
11/30/06
Okay, we'll admit that the ideal of being fawned over and adored by half-dressed men has some appeal, but this movie doesn't... sex in paradise shouldn't be this uninteresting.
11/30/06
Heading South opens up a fascinating world of complexities, some of which are there on the screen although others open up only once the horizon line moves past the screen's edge.
11/30/06
"Heading South" is more of a middling film precisely because it is so obviously tackling an issue and making a statement. As a result, the characters and the story suffer.
10/19/06
Related Forums
Laurent Cantet's HEADING SOUTH gets a USA preem @ the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
Laurent Cantet's HEADING SOUTH gets a USA preem @ the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
Laurent Cantet's HEADING SOUTH gets a USA preem @ the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
Laurent Cantet's HEADING SOUTH gets a USA preem @ the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/9/07
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