A FRENCH film has thrown a spotlight on the country’s latest cultural obsession by featuring Charlotte Rampling, the British star, in the role of a middle-aged sex tourist. The film, Vers le Sud (Heading South), premiered last week at the Venice film festival where it received glowing reviews for its compassionate treatment of women escaping loveless lives to have sex with young men in the tropics. It is certain to be well received in France, where a series of recent novels and magazine articles exploring the subject of women who pay for sex has taken the country’s well-documented taste for...