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![[A poster advertising the film Traffic]](traffic_poster.jpg)
A recent huge box office hit (still showing at the moment), attracting attention and awards nominations, has been the film Traffic, starring Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones. So what’s it all about then? Well the short answer is drugs, the longer one will take me the rest of this article.
Unlike most films Traffic doesn’t follow one story, it is many strands of tales woven together into one piece. Most of the main characters never even meet, but as the film progresses you begin to understand how despite never having had any direct contact with each other their lives are intimately connected (along with thousands upon thousands of unseen others) through the trade in illegal drugs between the US and Mexico. So does this film suggest a particular viewpoint we should take about these issues? Does it take the ‘moral high-ground’ — with whatever that may entail?
The answer is, not really. It gives you the stories and leaves you with questions, not answers. There’s the tale of a Mexican detective (Benicio Del Toro) fighting poverty, corruption and the drug barons in his own inimitable style. We see the story of an upper class woman (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who suddenly discovers her husband is a senior and powerful drug dealer and trafficker. We’re forced to witness with strongly mixed emotions how she ‘copes’ with his debts and the threats to her child whilst he’s on remand, eventually herself taking command of his organisation to protect her wealthy lifestyle. We explore a group of equally privileged and wealthy teenagers experimenting with sex and gradually ‘harder drugs’. Most centrally there is the role of one of these teenagers’ fathers (Michael Douglas), a federal statesman and judge who is appointed to lead the USA’s law enforcement departments in “The War on Drugs”, not knowing of his daughter’s addiction.
Altogether these different perspectives give us a well balanced (and occasionally shocking) picture of drug use, abuse, trading and policing throughout the Americas. Now I’m not suggesting it’s a documentary and that everything you see is true — but I sensed an underlying truth throughout the film; it seemed to be based round the facts, even though it remained fiction 1.
![[A still from the film]](traffic.jpg)
But where does this leave us? Why am I writing about this for a Christian magazine?
I think like many things in life the film will leave each of us in a different place, depending on where we start. For me, it reaffirmed my belief that fighting drug use in the US ‘warfare’ style is not the answer, however much it might win votes. Firstly we need to tackle the root causes of drug abuse and the drug trade, which the film seems to suggest are poverty and the emotional emptiness of those who take up drug use. Secondly I believe that we need to bring some Christian forgiveness and love into a harsh and brutal reality. Only through rehabilitation and caring will drug users kick the habit, not through imprisonment and victimisation. I am very thankful that Britain is already streets ahead of the US in our thinking on these issues.
For me the most poignant line in the film was said towards the end when Michael Douglas’ character announces to a press conference “when we declare war on drugs we make many of our own family member’s the enemy.” I’m sure we all know people who use drugs, however casually. Can we afford to make them our enemies? And even if we decide they are, shouldn’t we be applying the gospels challenge “to love our enemies”? (Matt 5 :44 or Luke 6 :27).
[1] The film’s concept, adapted by director-writer Steven Soderburgh (Out of Sight, Erin Brokovich) is in fact based on a late 1980s British Channel 4 documentary called Traffick, which traced similar networks of illegal drugs supply linking the UK and India.
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Last modified: 25th November 2005