Traffick :: essays papers

Traffick This saga of the so-called war on drugs is a masterwork of superb performance, smart writing--and, most of all, the mark of a director who not only knows what he wants, but also exactly how to make his ambitious vision a glorious reality. Unlike most multicharacter pastiches, such(prenominal) as the ones made by Robert Altman, or Paul Thomas Andersons Magnolia, the characters of Traffics three tales dont constantly crisscross, nor be they all brought together by a big event. Intersections are rare in Traffic, and the junctions that do occur are often fleeting. Yet the stories are strongly linked by their greater thematic concern to vividly illustrate how the drug problem touches all corners of the country, all walks of life, from people on the harsh urban streets to those in lavish upper-class neighborhoods. Soderbergh and writer Stephen Gaghan, working from the 80s British miniseries Traffik, steadfastly refuse to force easy, comforting conclusions from difficult and c omplex situations as in real life, one is left to decide for oneself who or what is right, and what it all means. small-arm Traffic is essentially about the war on drugs in America, the pips starting point is the almost-exclusively south-of-the-border (and nearly-completely Spanish-language) story of Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro, doing away with his annoying tics and delivering a career performance), an average Tijuana convey policeman who is given the opportunity for greater prestige by working for General Salazars (Tomas Milian) efforts against the drug cartels. Just north of the border in San Diego is the setting for other thread, in which very pregnant European migr Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones, her real-life condition adding a deeper layer to her role) learns that the pampered lifestyle provided by husband Carlos (Steven Bauer) comes from dabblings in drugs, not legit business ventures. The film also travels a bit northwest to Cincinnati, the third central locale, where Caroline (Erika Christensen), the teenage daughter of newly-appointed U.S. drug czar Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), brings her fathers enemy much closer to nucleotide than he could have ever imagined. Soderbergh effortlessly weaves the individual strands into a tapestry that is at once cohesive and characterized by its contrasting colors. The latter can be taken in a literal sense--Soderbergh, under the pseudonym Peter Andrews (his fathers name), shot the film himself, and he gave each part of the film its own distinguishable look grainy, washed-out yellow for Mexico a solemn blue sheen for Cincinnati sun-drenched full color for San Diego.