Fresh le Sud (2005)

Directed by: Laurent Cantet | 107 minutes | drama | Actors: Charlotte Rampling, Karen Young, Louise Portal, Ménothy Cesar, Lys Ambroise, Jackenson Pierre Olmo Diaz, Wilfried Paul, Anotte Saint Ford, Marie-Laurence Hérard, Michelet Cassis, Pierre-Jean Robert, Jean Delinze Salomon, Kettline Amy, Daphné Destin, Guiteau Nestant, Violette Vincent, Michelet Ulysse

Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) knows the ropes. Young men like Legba (Ménothy Cesar) give you money or gifts in exchange for sex and the illusion that you are still young and desirable. What matters most is that you are honest about the business side of such an affair. A matter of mutual respect that she has felt good about for years. Brenda (Karen Young) had her first orgasm three years ago by a very young Legba. She had come to Haiti with her husband, but now she is alone and immediately after arriving she goes in search of her great love. Brenda showers Legba with attention and gifts, but breaks the unwritten rule that jealousy and possessiveness are out of the question. Someone like Legba is for everyone and therefore nobody’s. Brenda’s passionate love for Legba forces Ellen to look at herself. Behind a facade of ridicule and independence hides a woman who yearns for love, true love, but Legba doesn’t belong to anyone, so it’s not hers either.

The first question that comes to mind when watching ‘Vers le Sud’ is who this movie was actually made for. You hardly become wiser about Baby Doc’s reign of terror and the consequences for the population. The moralists don’t get their money’s worth either, because the men who get paid don’t suffer much. They just make their living doing what they are good at. The fact that the women display morally reprehensible behavior is not obvious. They are far too sad for that and suffer from their own needs rather than being an oppressor. The target audience cannot be other than middle-aged women who, like the women in the film, are no longer wanted by anyone and who have to resort to paid, but above all affordable sex in a country with a poor population. It’s not about anything else at all.

The result is a cheap novel that is also rather clumsy, because the director had lost track of what he was already planning to tell. Still clever when you manage to make such a trivial film with such a fantastic actress as Charlotte Rampling, who plays Ellen beautifully, and a debuting Ménothy Cesar, who is hardly inferior to her. And boring too.