Traffic

Steven Soderbergh keeps 3 strands running with almost no contact: a Mexican policeman, an Ohio judge handed the national drug brief, and a San Diego woman who inherits the business when her husband is arrested. In Traffik, the 1989 Channel 4 series behind it, the supply ran from Pakistan; the film moved it to Mexico. Colour is navigation, not decoration. Soderbergh shot the film himself as Peter Andrews, operating the camera: the Ohio blue comes from tungsten stock used in daylight without correction, not from a filter; San Diego is warmed by diffusion and overexposure; Mexico hardened by tobacco filters and a 45 degree shutter. He insisted the Mexican characters speak Spanish to one another; when the studio proposed covering Benicio del Toro’s scenes in English too, both refused, so most of those lines stay in subtitles. Some politicians play themselves: their scene, first shot with actors, was reshot fully improvised once Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Orrin Hatch and Bill Weld agreed. It won 4 Academy Awards from 5 nominations: directing, supporting actor, adapted screenplay and editing, losing only best picture. A good fit if you accept 3 strands that never quite meet and none of them closing. Not for you if you would rather not read del Toro’s dialogue off the bottom of the frame.