[Very slight spoilers] Director and cinematographer Steven Soderbergh creates in Traffic an Altmanesque narrative mosaic of epic scale and complexity. In developing its unflinching examination of the contemporary drug scene, the film takes us on a sweeping journey across a social landscape that ranges from the political drawing rooms of D.C. drug policy-makers, to the posh houses of California drug lords, to the meanest street abodes of pushers and users, and to both sides of the Mexican-American border - the putative `frontline' in the hapless, perhaps even hopeless, war on drugs.
Masterfully inter-cutting among three plot lines, Soderbergh also interweaves three symbolically-suggestive cinematographic styles: a grainy, handheld, sub-titled documentary style for the Mexican scenes, a cool Conformist-like blue for many of the drug use scenes, and a `realistic' color palette for the middle-America scenes. Perhaps the film's greatest glory, though, is its extraordinary wealth of fascinating characters some are admirable, many are despicable or pathetic, but all are developed with incredible economy of dialogue and screen-time. Much of this success, of course, must be attributed to the casting. Michael Douglas gives an understated, highly nuanced performance as Robert Hudson Wakefield, a U.S. drug czar whose failure as an administrator opens the door for his redemption as a human being. Erika Christensen, as Wakefield's troubled, drug-addicted 16 year old, is continuously surprising and convincing.
Among the Mexican characters should be mentioned not only Bernicio Del Toro's much-deserved Academy Award winning turn as a corrupt cop with an idealistic heart, but also Tomas Milian's chillingly wonderful (and under-praised) performance as Mexican General Arturo Salazar. Catherine Zeta-Jones, pregnantly (literally and figuratively) playing a drug lord's pregnant wife, is a revelation, dominating the screen in every scene she appears in. Other fine performances are turned in by Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman, as DEA officers, Miguel Ferrer, as a middle-manager in the drug-pushing business, and Topher Grace, as a glib high school pusher. All in all, Traffic's use of a high quality acting ensemble to choreograph and humanize the drug plot and the film's social and political themes also bears comparison with the socially-conscious Altman of Nashville and Short Cuts.
Having rooted heavily for Traffic to win this year's Best Picture Award, I was pleased when a viewing of its recent DVD release only reinforced my original reaction that this was far and away the most artistically ambitious and powerful film in the Academy-nominated field, the beauty and intrigue of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon notwithstanding. I'd now go further and claim it as certainly one of the half dozen best American films of the last decade.
Masterfully inter-cutting among three plot lines, Soderbergh also interweaves three symbolically-suggestive cinematographic styles: a grainy, handheld, sub-titled documentary style for the Mexican scenes, a cool Conformist-like blue for many of the drug use scenes, and a `realistic' color palette for the middle-America scenes. Perhaps the film's greatest glory, though, is its extraordinary wealth of fascinating characters some are admirable, many are despicable or pathetic, but all are developed with incredible economy of dialogue and screen-time. Much of this success, of course, must be attributed to the casting. Michael Douglas gives an understated, highly nuanced performance as Robert Hudson Wakefield, a U.S. drug czar whose failure as an administrator opens the door for his redemption as a human being. Erika Christensen, as Wakefield's troubled, drug-addicted 16 year old, is continuously surprising and convincing.
Among the Mexican characters should be mentioned not only Bernicio Del Toro's much-deserved Academy Award winning turn as a corrupt cop with an idealistic heart, but also Tomas Milian's chillingly wonderful (and under-praised) performance as Mexican General Arturo Salazar. Catherine Zeta-Jones, pregnantly (literally and figuratively) playing a drug lord's pregnant wife, is a revelation, dominating the screen in every scene she appears in. Other fine performances are turned in by Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman, as DEA officers, Miguel Ferrer, as a middle-manager in the drug-pushing business, and Topher Grace, as a glib high school pusher. All in all, Traffic's use of a high quality acting ensemble to choreograph and humanize the drug plot and the film's social and political themes also bears comparison with the socially-conscious Altman of Nashville and Short Cuts.
Having rooted heavily for Traffic to win this year's Best Picture Award, I was pleased when a viewing of its recent DVD release only reinforced my original reaction that this was far and away the most artistically ambitious and powerful film in the Academy-nominated field, the beauty and intrigue of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon notwithstanding. I'd now go further and claim it as certainly one of the half dozen best American films of the last decade.