Women Who Travel for Sun, Sea and Gigolos in Laurent Cantet's 'Heading South' Liz Hoggard - The Independent
go to original May 28, 2013

Trailer for Heading South by Laurent Cantet. On the sun-drenched island of Haiti in the 80s, foreigners idle away their vacations in the palm-fringed paradise of the beach hotels. Brenda, Ellen and Sue, three North American women, converge on the island looking for flirtation, relaxation and respite from their colorless jobs and marriages. (Celluloiddreams)

An attractive woman sips a cocktail under a bamboo shade. The sand is dazzlingly white, the sea aquamarine. A handsome young man approaches her and showers her with compliments: she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, he says. For the first time in years, she truly believes she is desirable.

But this holiday romance is not all it seems. The woman is white, in her late 50s; the man, black, 18 – and paid for his attentions. The scene – from the controversial French film, Heading South, starring Charlotte Rampling, makes us confront uncomfortable truths about sexuality in a globalised world, and the legacy of colonialism.

In the film, an intelligent, provocative take on sex tourism in the late-1970s, Rampling plays Ellen, an American professor, who spends every summer at a private resort in Haiti, where beautiful, muscled black boys are available to the female clientele, mostly affluent single women in their forties, who despair of finding mates through more conventional means. “More than sex, they are seeking a tenderness that the world is refusing them,” the film’s director, Laurence Cantet, explains.

Fast-forward 30 years, and the reality of sex tourism is anything but tender. Today beach resorts in developing countries such as Kuta in Bali, Negril in Jamaica and Boca Chica and Sosua in the Dominican Republic have become Third World pick-up spots for women tourists. Tour companies even market package deals as sex holidays for single and unaccompanied women. Forget Shirley Valentine, these women – who range from grandmothers to teens – don’t want a long-term relationship. And there’s plenty of live flesh on sale.

Read the rest at Talesfromthelou's Blog

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