Human Traffic

Human Traffic is a film that focus's on the rave scene in the 1990s, when drugs and clubs were at their high. Its about five friends in Cardiff and their mad weekend off together, going to clubs and partying. It was directed by Justin Kerrigan and was released in 1999, at the end of the era.

Many people have said it was exactly like they remembered the nineties and was pretty much and autobiography, and others said it was nothing like the 90s and was too over the top. Of course, everyone have a different experience and so you would expect people to disagree. The filmed is mainly aimed at people who lived through the 1990s as a 18-30 year old

I'd considered the film to be British and all the actors and the director is also British. Unlike a lot of movies today which are produced by an American company, Human Traffic is produced by Fruit Salad Films which is an Irish/British company. In this respect I would class it as a British film. 

The characters in this are all part of a social group who share a common interest, drinking, drugs, music and partying every weekend - this brings it into a real context, people are friends with others they share a common interest in (and for a lot of people its the same things as the people in this film), the audience can relate to the characters in one way or another as they are pretty ordinary people. Each character has a weakness, Jip - sexually paranoird, Moff - bad life at home, Lulu - feminist, Koop -jealous and paranoid his girlfriend will leave him and Nina - Doubts herself. These insecurities also help the audience to identify with them.

Human Traffic is set in the Wales, United Kingdom. It only shows people from that area and so it is culturally biased, people from other countries (and even the UK) may have not had the same experience in the 90s as they characters did in this film. The way the film is shot, being narrated by Jip and the characters talking into the camera give it a documentary feeling and involve the audience into the film. Instead of feeling like a viewer, you feel like a participant.
In the intro it shows people at festivals and clubs partying which does show you an insight of what it was like at the time - not just the good points and partying, but also what was going on in the news and riots. 

The scene I have chosen to analyse is the scene where Moff and his new found friend are talking about Star Wars. It is shot from mainly a static angle which looks at both characters in the same shot, it just focus' on them and doesn't move in or zoom, it makes the audience feel as though they are an observer at the party watching the convocation. This makes them feel more involved and emphasizes how it is a socially realistic film.

I don't think Human Traffic promotes drug usage through the effects and uses of gratifications because it's down to what the people thinks and not how the media effects them, but how they affect the media itself.