It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

At the center of "Vers le sud" (Going South) is Legba, a hunky and lovable teenage Haitian lad who works as a sort of beach boy at a posh Haitian resort well away from the miseries of Haiti's urban areas in the 1970s.What Legba really does is provide "companionship" to middle aged American and European single women who want attention paid to them in an exotic locale with well-muscled and charming young black menwith French accents. It's kinda sex tourism, but for the gals.Legba (Methony Cesar) has long been the special summer companion to Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), about 55, a resort regular who is a Brit and a languages professor from Boston. She is worldly, sophisticated and imperious. She considers Legba basically hers for the summer.Into this scenario bumbles Brenda (Karen Young), a mouseburger divorcée from Savannah, Ga., who visited the hotel once three years earlier and had a sexual liaison with Legba. At age 45, she had her first orgasm with him. She is obsessed with him and, once she finds he's still working at the hotel, intends to claim him as hers.Brenda is clearly not emotionally stable, but Ellen also has issues.You may think this movie is going to be some kind of cat fight, but it has bigger fish to fry. For one thing, Legba, we see, has a back story no one else in the movie is aware of. The movie explores racism, colonialism, women's issues and class conflict, among other things. Hey, it's a French movie.If you like well-crafted, original dramas, you should check it out.

When I first heard about this film I was determined to go see it as it sounded like the makings of a great film. It did have the makings of a great film, but unfortunately they didn't make a great film out of it! It was boring, tension-free and uneventful. It was impossible to empathise with any of the main characters as none of them had strong enough characters to provoke any interest from the viewer. The fact that it was set in Haiti during Baby Doc's reign of terror should have meant that there was a palpable sense of fear or dread throughout the entire film...there was none, apart from very brief moments. Even the central theme of older ladies travelling to a poor country to use local young men as sex toys for the duration of their holiday wasn't explored in any depth. Overall, a disappointing experience.

Excellent piece of work in every way ... this movie covers such profound issues, it touches the human soul .. emotional, genuine, realistic, and the performance of all involved was truly authentic.I loved it ... must admit I happen to have this weakness for Black men, especially of French descent such as Haitians .. something about them is more intense and encompassing, more subtle and sensitive ...One thing I didn't quite understand however: I had the impression that Ellen hired the gunman just to frighten Legba, to then convince him to leave the country with her. I guess that wasn't it, but can someone tell me who killed Legba? Also, who was that Black woman in the Mercedes .. what was that all about? sorry I was lost with that part..Thanks P.K.

It's difficult for audience members to watch movies like this without subjecting the film to a standard for film, not art. They watch dumbly, unable to appreciate, comparing and analyzing why they don't see relevance to their lives, and ultimately not connecting. This film, I find, to be extremely good, telling a very real story (although there are numerous anachronisms to the late 70's/early 80's time period), and when such films pursue such detailed reality within the construct of of a story-telling medium, the results are dazzling. The setting is Haiti, with its poverty and glorious island paradise, there are political tensions, there are racial problems. There are the older women paying young Haitian men for sex, they have histories. There are many circumstances. The beauty of it is, you can envision the entire history of Ellen (Charlotte Rampling's character) in an entirely different movie with as much depth as you may find anywhere, credit due to her acting and the writer. You can see so many other stories being untold and told at once, if you let go of your cinematic prejudices. Legba's past is never disclosed, but it's at once known without knowing, and even the 'reality' monologues, questionably interspersed, they're revealing as much as they are saying by what they're not saying. Audience members have difficulty allowing their imaginations to read between the lines and fully engross themselves. The specificity of this film makes its themes universal and undeniably relevant to anyone, including me, a 30 year old white American artist. There are questionable cinematic devices to a cynical viewer, but ultimately the film stands on its own two feet and proclaims certain hidden truths. Shall I name them? No. I recommend this film highly to humble, intellectual minds who appreciate humanity. I especially appreciated what I viewed as the fundamental difference between two people from different backgrounds who shared the same passion. Ellen and Brenda both love Legba. Ellen, the English woman, understands the circumstances and resigns herself to them without hope, while Brenda, the awkward and passionate American, lets her heart bleed all over the place with hope. Hope and faith, and belief in miracles, a truly innate and indigenous American characteristic, while cynicism, resolution, calculated and methodical, stereotypes the Brits. Each has their downfall, but the love remains from the heart. I liked this film very much.