Soderbergh Blog-a-Thon Day Two: The Perfect Drug

Yesterday for the LAMB’s Steven Soderbergh Blog-a-Thon, I posted links to three of my reviews. Today I’ll be writing about another movie, but I don’t really intend for this to be a review. See I do indeed count Soderbergh as a director I admire, and of his movies TRAFFIC is easily my favorite. No only is it my favorite of his movies, but I count it as one of my top five movies of all time. Why? Hard to say. But in an effort to put my thoughts on it into words, I rewatched it, and tried to look for what it is about the film that speaks to me.

I should begin by mentioning that I don’t have any personal connection to the war on drugs. I’ve never done ’em (hard as that might be to believe) nor has anyone I’m close to. So watching this story doesn’t tap into a nerve. I do know that the photographer in me was drawn to the way this movie looks.

The Mexico sequences have a rough look to them, seeming as though they were shot on whatever leftover film clippings could be found. Sidenote: They weren’t of course, but it took a lot of work to make them look like they were. To me, this image quality reflects a bit of the poverty rampant in Mexico. A story set there shouldn’t look bright and shiny, it should just “make do”…much the same way the bulk of Mexico’s population live with mostly necessity. As the story moves to Washington DC, the colour cast shifts dramatically, with a very blueish hue taking over. Here’s the thing, in photography this is actually a pretty easy trick to achieve. One merely takes film meant to be shot inside, and shoots outside. The resulting shift in light quality throws the image.

Much like the grainy look of the Mexican footage, the colour-shifted visual of DC says something about the characters we watch. These people are primarily facades. They are bright, smiling, department store visuals. When they are inside – in classrooms, at press conferences, hosting benefits – they look perfect. Get them out into the brighter light of day however, and they don’t have all the answers. They aren’t as perfect. Like those blueish images…they seem a little off. I’m drawn to interesting visuals, so details like these certainly stuck with me in the nine years since the release of TRAFFIC.

I get paid to solve problems. Not problems as big as the drug trade mind you, but smaller puzzles which require a method and understanding. As such, I’m fascinated by the way characters in this film think they have the answers. Take Catherine Zeta-Jones as Ayala. When her husband gets picked up for dealing drugs, she first expresses disgust. She tearfully sulks, not seeming to know how to fend for herself, and spits daggers at her husband for dragging her and their children down this road. However, when money starts to dry up, and her husband’s drug creditors start to threaten her family’s welfare, she becomes industrious. It’s not like she thinks “Just this once…”, she goes right to the top as a cold blooded businesswoman.

This development is slightly foreseen by Topher Grace’s character Seth, as he points out how many affluent people wouldn’t be so fast to condemn drug dealing if they understood the true nature of its economics. It doesn’t seem to phase Michael Douglas’ character one bit, but I think it should. After all, this is the same guy who offered his closest advisers carte blanche on new ideas to solve the problem…only to be met with silence. That’s the thing in life sometimes – people are more than happy to bitch about a problem, but when you ask them to suggest a solution, they can only shrug and stare. In the end, I’m happy to see Douglas as Robert Wakefield learn his lesson, so aptly put by his last line of the film “We’re here to listen”.

I;m an idealist, and as such I like to believe that there are still people out there doing things for the greater good. Most of the characters in TRAFFIC are only driven by their own gains – financial, political, chemical. By far, the character who seems to be acting for the betterment of us all is Benicio del Toro as Javier Rodriguez.

He seems to be the only straight lawman in the entire country, and as such he begins the film in a job paying peanuts. But when he finds himself privy to very valuable information, he doesn’t offer it up to the highest bidder…he decides it’s best to share it with another law agency (one who stands a chance at fixing Mexico’s problems). Even when he is offered a reward for his effort, he asks for an endowment to his community, and nothing for himself personally. When it’s all said and done, he’s too aware to really celebrate it. The FBI tells him that he should feel good about what he’s done. Knowing the cost, Javier can only offer back “I feel like a traitor”.

I like to believe that there are people out there like Javier. People dedicated to keeping us safe and making things better for us all. I know there aren’t many, but the film reminds me of the ones that are around. It’s a grown-up film, and one that I saw as I began my grown-up life. It’s a slightly sprawling story, but one that often comes back to one message: There are no easy answers. When you take all of these details, wrap them up in some sharp writing, hard editing, and concise directing, you get a film that doesn’t preach, and instead reminds us to consider all sides of a problem before rushing to judgement.

I guess that’s what it is about the film that speaks to me.