Human Traffic
UK/Ireland 1999
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
One wild weekend in present-day Cardiff. Jip is a shop worker in his twenties, embarrassed by his prostitute mother and insecure after failing to perform sexually during several one-night stands. Lulu is a uninhibited club minx, and Moff a laid-back dope dealer on income support who deals from his home, despite the fact that his father is a policeman. Koop works in a record shop and is obsessively jealous of his long-term girlfriend Nina.
On Friday night, the five friends, together with Nina's younger brother Lee, drop the drug ecstasy and set off for the Cardiff club scene. When Moff fails to get a ticket into top club The Asylum for Lulu, Jip gives her his and blags his way in by pretending to be a journalist from Mixmag magazine.
Inside, Jip confides his sexual worries to Lulu. The gang move on to a party at a country home, and become progressively more stoned on various drugs. Returning to Lulu's house, Jip and Lulu have sex. Nina and Koop make peace, while across town Moff masturbates in his bedroom and is discovered by his mum. On Sunday, Jip takes flowers to his own mother. That evening, he and Lulu wander hand in hand through Cardiff's city centre as bona fide boyfriend and girlfriend.
Review
On the face of it, the cinematic appeal of clubland is easy to see. It's loud, it's visual. Its dramatic landscape is a cauldron of surface emotions. The scene serves up a ready-made menu of free-loving youngsters, and is liberally garnished with an energetic contemporary soundtrack - sex and drugs and drum 'n' bass.
But first impressions can be deceptive. Film-makers who try to fit the essence of club culture into a dramatic straitjacket are liable to find it sliding through their fingers, because club culture - like art, like music, like film itself - is an autonomous and organic mode of expression. The disciplines are mutually exclusive. Bernardo Bertolucci may have described his recent film Besieged as "a piece of chamber music," but it remained, basically, a film about a concert pianist. Likewise, while Human Traffic may arrive billed as "a blinding rave movie" (by Heat magazine), it is, rather, a film about ravers. Its formal attempts to duplicate the rave experience are far and away the picture's weakest aspects.
Human Traffic labours hard to look like a film under the influence. Edited in an amphetamine rush, its fly-on-the-wall dramatics are interspersed with Day-Glo fantasy sequences. The dialogue apes the kind of bumper-sticker soundbites you find in the "House Nation" vox pops inside Mixmag magazine (a publication to which the film shrewdly cosies up). Its lead characters often deliver their lines to camera, presumably in an attempt to break the division between screen and viewer, to usher us all into the filmic party. Meanwhile, spasmodic attempts are made to hook Human Traffic's microcosmic shenanigans into a wider raison d'être (cue a cameo from former drug dealer-turned-cult hero Howard Marks, newsreel footage of Direct Action protesters, plus an impromptu rendition of an "alternative national anthem" that must rank as one of the most excruciating scenes I've seen all year). Stylistically, Human Traffic is hardly radical. For much of its run, Justin Kerrigan's debut views like a cross between The Monkees and those snazzy commercials that building societies use to target young investors.
Kerrigan is more effective when keeping to the subtler, more human parts of his canvas. His portraits of the interrelationships between his five principles, for instance, are often beautifully done. Kerrigan has cited Richard Linklater as a major influence and in its best moments Human Traffic manages to match the airy rhythms of films like Dazed and Confused and Before Sunrise. These characters are wasted but likable; the performances (from the male trio of John Simm, Shaun Parkes and Danny Dyer in particular) are consistently charming. You have a sense that beneath all the bullshit, the strutting, the jockeying for position, they all genuinely love each other. Their self-conscious back-chat frames real and deep-seated emotions.
Good acting gives Human Traffic its soul. If Kerrigan had given his players more room to breathe, one suspects, he might have produced something truly special. As it stands, Human Traffic unrolls as a frustrating hodge-podge: its spine of authenticity overladen with so many ham-fisted gimmicks and gestures at cool that it irritates as much as it allures. In the end its reach exceeds its grasp. As a film about clubbers, Human Traffic rings sweet and true. As an essay on club culture in general, it feels half-cut: pure narcotic padded out with talcum powder.
Credits
- Producers
- Allan Niblo
- Emer McCourt
- Screenplay
- Justin Kerrigan
- Director of Photography
- David Bennett
- Editor
- Patrick Moore
- Production Designer
- David Buckingham
- Music
- Roberto Mello
- Matthew Herbert
- ©Fruit Salad Films Ltd
- Production Companies
- Metrodome/Irish Screen presents a Fruit Salad Films production of a Justin Kerrigan film
- Executive Producer
- Renata S. Aly
- Co-executive Producers
- Michael Wearing
- Nigel Warren-Green
- Kevin Menton
- Associate Producers
- Arthur Baker
- Rupert Preston
- Irish Screen Head of Production
- David McLoughlin
- Production Co-ordinators
- Andrea Cornwall
- Marcus Collier
- Production Managers
- Jonathan Rawlinson
- Additional:
- Stella Nwimo
- Location Managers
- Peter Vidler
- Frank Coles
- Additional:
- Andy Collie
- Post-production Supervisors:
- Maria Walker
- Jackie Vance
- Co-ordinator:
- Claire Mason
- Production Consultant
- Andy Ordonez
- Development
- Anna Wilson
- Assistant Directors
- Emma Pounds
- Hywel Watkins
- Charlie Watson
- Marcus Collier
- Mathew Penry Davey
- Tivian Zvekan
- Martin Scanlan
- Pick-ups:
- Marcus Collier
- Script Supervisor
- Laura Gwynn
- Casting
- Directors:
- Sue Jones
- Gary Howe
- Additional:
- Jason Camilleri
- Steadicam
- Paul Edwards
- Additional Editing
- Stuart Gazzard
- Editbox Editor
- Clayton Lonie Jr
- Art Director
- Sue Ayton
- Storyboard Artists
- Nick Kilroy
- Deena Mathews
- Costume Designer
- Claire Anderson
- Costume Supervisor
- Anne McManus
- Make-up/Hair Design
- Tony Lilley
- Hair/Make-up Artists
- Hannah Coles
- Kerry September
- Music Supervisor
- Pete Tong
- Music Co-ordinator
- Roberto Mello
- Music Editor
- Kenny Clark
- Music Consultant
- Arthur Baker
- Soundtrack
- "Build It Up, Tear It Down" by Normal Cook, performed by Fatboy Slim; "My Last Request" by D. Douglas, M. Hamilton, performed by Grim; "Kill the Pain" by M. Philippou, M. Fiennes, performed by Universal; "Nightmare" by Alberto Bertapelle, performed by Brainbug; "Stalker" by G. King; performed by Aphrodite; "You Gonna Get Yours" by C. Ridenhour, Hank Shocklee, performed by Public Enemy; "Scared" by Hadfield, Ryan-Carter, performed by Lucid; "Flowerz" by Armand Van Helden,Roland Clark, performed by Armand Van Helden; "It Ain't Gonna Be Me", "Desolate 1" by/performed by C.J. Bolland; "Atlanta" by/performed by Pete Heller; "Push It", "DarkAir" "Mantra (Forever)" by Ian Bland, Rob Tissera, performed by Quake; "Out of the Blue" by Perry Corsten, performed by System F; "Orgive" by Erik Satie, arranged/performed by William Orbit; "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" by Cleveland, performed by Indeep; "Dirt" by Richard Fearless, Steve Hellier, J. McDonald, performed by Death in Vegas; "Cookies" by G. Lee, performed by Jacknife Lee; "Diving Faces" by T. Menguaer, J. Herborth, performed by Liquid Child; "Kosmic Pop", "My Fellow Boppers" by F. Stalings Jnr, performed by Felix De Housekat; "Getting Blunted" by/performed by Mulder; "All Day" by Tyrrell, R. Martin, performed by Interfearence; "Kittens" by Emerson, Smith, Hyde, performed by Underworld; "Juice" by Shur, Molton, performed by Itaal Shur; "The Age of Love" by Bruno Sanchioni, Giuseppe Cherchia, performed by The Age of Love; "College of Dreams" by/performed by John Beltran; "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" by Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster, performed by Mantovani; "Shine On" by S. Lewis, M. Mangini, S. Faber, A. Curtesa, performed by Degrees of Motion; "King Tito's Gloves" by Damon Baxter, performed by Deadly Avenger; "Café Del Mar" by Paul M., performed by Energy 52; "The Masterplan" by Diana Brown, Romeo, Barrie K. Sharpe, Lever, Percy, performed by Diane Brown, Barrie K. Sharpe; "Belfast" by Paul Hartnoll, Phillip Hartnoll, performed by Orbital; "Black Shaolin" by Carl Cox, Top Cat, performed by Top Cat; "Anastasia" by Olivier Abbeloos, Patrick de Meyer, performed by T99; "Scene 30" by Richard Warren, performed by Echoboy; "Bad Boy" by Ruffnek Trilogy, performed by RNT; "Mood Club" by O. Lunny, performed by First Born; "5.55" by Daniel Newman, performed by Durango; "Come Together" by Bobby Gillespie, Andrew Innes, Robert Young, performed by Primal Scream; "BucketWipe" by Bailiff, performed by Position Normal; "Puffin' Da 'Erb" performed by Mad Doctor X; "Congratulations", "Never Believe"
- Sound Recordist
- Martyn Stevens
- Re-recording Mixers
- Craig Irving
- Nick Le Mesurier
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Glenn Freemantle
- Sound Editor
- Tom Sayers
- Dialogue Editors
- Keith Marriner
- Gillian Dodders
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Sandy Buckanan
- Foley
- Editor:
- Miriam Ludbrook
- Cast
- John Simm
- Jip
- Lorraine Pilkington
- Lulu
- Shaun Parkes
- Koop
- Danny Dyer
- Moff
- Nicola Reynolds
- Nina
- Dean Davies
- Lee
- Peter Albert
- Lulu's Uncle Eric
- Jan Anderson
- Karen Benson
- Terence Beesley
- Moff's father
- Sarah Blackburn
- Jip's ex 2
- Anne Bowen
- Moff's grandmother
- Neil Bowens
- Asylum doorman
- Peter Bramhill
- Matt
- Jo Brand
- Mrs Reality
- Stephanie Brooks
- Fleur
- Richard Coyle
- Andy
- Carl Cox
- Pablo Hassan
- Nicola Davey
- Jip's ex 3
- Roger Evans
- Inca
- Bradley Freegard
- Tyler
- Helen Griffin
- Jip's mother
- Emma Hall
- Trixi
- Elizabeth Harper
- Jip's ex 1
- Carol Harrison
- Moff's mother
- Jennifer Hill
- Jip's secretary
- Tyrone Johnson
- hip hop junkie
- Justin Kerrigan
- Ziggy Marlon
- Nicola Heywood-Thomas
- TV interviewer
- Nick Kilroy
- Herbie
- Andrew Lincoln
- Felix
- Howard Marks
- himself
- Robert Marrable
- Casey
- Louis Marriot
- Cardiff bad boy
- Danny Midwinter
- Tyrone
- Millsy in Nottingham
- Millsy from Roath
- Robbie Newby
- Karen Benson's boyfriend
- Ninjah
- Tom Tom's MC
- Cadfen Roberts
- Jip's mother's client
- Mad Doctor X
- Koop's workmate
- Phillip Rosch
- Jip's manager
- Jason Samuels
- bad boy
- Mark Seaman
- Jeremy Faxman
- Lynne Seymour
- Connie
- Patrick Taggart
- Luke
- Giles Thomas
- Martin
- Menna Trussler
- Lulu's Auntie Violet
- Larrington Walker
- Koop's father
- Anna Wilson
- Boomshanka
- Eilian Wyn
- doctor
- Tim Hamilton
- breakdancer/bodypopper
- Alicia Ferraboschi
- Sherena Flash
- Marat Khairoullu
- Adam Pudney
- Mark Seymore
- Algernon Williams
- Colin Williams
- Frank Wilson
- bodypoppers
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- Metrodome Distribution Ltd
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby digital SR
- In Colour