Brenda arrives in 70s Haiti looking to find the then 15-year-old Legba, a street waif she took in and ultimately seduced, awakening her own long suppressed sexual longings. When she gets there the boy has become a man, a male prostitute servicing defiant but ultimately self-deluding middle-aged women.
Karen Young is excellent as the clingy, needy Brenda, hopelessly believing that romantic love can prevail amongst the sexual and political squalor of corrupt, poverty-stricken Haiti. Her performance is matched by Charlotte Rampling as steely Ellen, the alpha female of the beach-and-boys set who appears to be in control, until Brenda's arrival strips her facade away and shows she, too, is hopelessly lost. The women see themselves as enjoying a pleasure their own Western world has denied them, wantonly ignorant of their own corrosive influence.
Ménothy Cesar as Legba is a powerful screen presence and brings humanity and surprises to a difficult role. The film makes strange choices: having characters talk directly to camera documentary style, for example. This economically condenses much of the story, but ultimately felt like a cheat. Legba's ill-fated dalliance with an ex serves to seal his fate in a way that wraps things up too neatly and so conflicts with the greater socioeconomic, and human, issues that the film had attempted to introduce.
Wonderful acting, but a storyline that is at times pat and ultimately too earnest in its telling.
Karen Young is excellent as the clingy, needy Brenda, hopelessly believing that romantic love can prevail amongst the sexual and political squalor of corrupt, poverty-stricken Haiti. Her performance is matched by Charlotte Rampling as steely Ellen, the alpha female of the beach-and-boys set who appears to be in control, until Brenda's arrival strips her facade away and shows she, too, is hopelessly lost. The women see themselves as enjoying a pleasure their own Western world has denied them, wantonly ignorant of their own corrosive influence.
Ménothy Cesar as Legba is a powerful screen presence and brings humanity and surprises to a difficult role. The film makes strange choices: having characters talk directly to camera documentary style, for example. This economically condenses much of the story, but ultimately felt like a cheat. Legba's ill-fated dalliance with an ex serves to seal his fate in a way that wraps things up too neatly and so conflicts with the greater socioeconomic, and human, issues that the film had attempted to introduce.
Wonderful acting, but a storyline that is at times pat and ultimately too earnest in its telling.