Pubdate: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2001 The Dallas Morning News Contact: P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265 Fax: (972) 263-0456 Feedback: http://dmnweb.dallasnews.com/letters/ Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Forum: http://forums.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/wwwthreads.pl Author: Ricardo Sandoval Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/traffic.htm (Traffic) SNARLING ABOUT 'TRAFFIC' Drug Film's View Of Mexico May Cause Distress Yet Bring Success MEXICO CITY The acid test for the wildly popular American drug film Traffic starts Friday in Mexico. It will open amid great buzz on 250 screens throughout the country, the largest opening here in recent memory for any movie, domestic or foreign. And no wonder. Mexico, with its chronic drug-trafficking problem, is the movie's deeply flawed central character. The portrayal of the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and what drug experts fear are systemically corrupt police and military units, has drawn brickbats from Mexicans who say the movie exaggerates and mischaracterizes their country. Many of them are so upset that they're expected to fill movie houses like never before. Demand to see the movie even before it officially opened was great, said Jaime Alcalde, representative for Artecinema, the movie's Mexico distributor. At three preview showings around Mexico City, theaters were full, and exit interviews provided a mixed bag of criticism and praise for director Steven Soderberg's latest film. "The only thing I can say is that it shows the extremes to which people can be demonized, without real research into what really happened," said Teresa Gutierrez Rebollo, daughter of jailed Mexican general and former anti-drug czar Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo. Accompanied by her father's attorney, Ms. Gutierrez Rebollo said after the screening that a pivotal Mexican character in the film, a corrupt army general, bore "no relation" to her imprisoned father. Behind the scenes, American officials such as U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow have seen preview copies. Even Mexican President Vicente Fox is said to have gotten a sneak peek early last week. Aides would not disclose his reaction. On-screen Distortions "Many Mexicans will be upset by the way Mexico comes off in the movie," said Ana Maria Salazar, a former Pentagon drug policy official who was raised in Mexico. "It's a good movie. But if it's reality the movie's makers wanted, they missed the mark on some key points." Ms. Salazar, a visiting professor at the Autonomous Technical Institute of Mexico, pointed out dramatizations in Traffic that go beyond reality, such as the film's premise that all Mexican officials are linked to drug dealers. "It shows some things that have happened," Federal Judicial Police Commander Xavier Villegas told the Mexico City daily newspaper Reforma after a preview. "But we must make clear that this is made in the United States, and only [the Mexicans] are the bad guys." Even Tijuana is distorted. In the movie, the Mexican border city is a sepia-toned, tumble-down mess stuck in a scruffy desert. The Mexican border scenes reportedly were shot in Nogales, across the Arizona border. In reality, healthy chunks of Tijuana are thoroughly modern and cosmopolitan, and the city sits on the Pacific Coast amid the same mild temperatures enjoyed by its American twin city, San Diego. That city, by contrast, is shot in full, cool color. "I was offended by those colors because the United States looks so real, and Mexico looks so dirty and dark," said Martha Jimenez, a 25-year-old bureaucrat, as she emerged from a preview in Mexico City's upscale Polanco neighborhood. "But in the final analysis, I suspect, that darkness is a reality for us." 'So Real That It's Scary' Even its harshest critics in Mexico give Traffic high marks not only for accurately portraying widespread problems in their country, but for not sparing the United States for its insatiable drug appetite and a moral ambiguity that looms large behind the drug-war rhetoric. "It's so real that it's scary," said Maria de Jesus Ortega, a 28-year-old veterinarian at the same preview. "It reflects what young people and families here and [in the United States] live through." This weekend, Traffic is expected to top the $100 million mark in the United States and Canada, the traditional blockbuster barrier and an amazing accomplishment for this type of film. It also is up for five Oscars. In Mexico, it was lauded by preview audiences for its frankness and originality, even if its multiple story lines closely followed a British television miniseries of the same name, only set in England, Germany and Pakistan. The movie avoided copycat status by folding in true stories from the U.S.-Mexico struggle against traffickers, such as the Gutierrez Rebollo-like character and the easy co-opting of Mexican law enforcement by dueling drug cartels. Looking Inside In the movie, the fictional Obregon brothers stand in for the real Arrellano-Felix siblings who run the Tijuana Cartel. And like in real life, the Juarez Cartel's leader is presumed dead after botched plastic surgery. In the movie, the Juarez chief reappears with nasty facial scars and Mexican actress Salma Hayek by his side, in a seamless cameo as a perky mob moll. The authentic Juarez leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died in a failed attempt to alter his looks, according to Mexican officials and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents who saw the body and the autopsy reports. Traffic's greatest success in Mexico may be seizing an unprecedented wave of self-examination on a national scale. Until a few years ago, Mexicans were shy of openly ridiculing their institutions. But then came Vicente Fox, whose open-collar campaign for president succeeded in booting out a long-ruling political party that routinely drubbed out media critics. A Changed Mexico Mr. Fox surged in pre-election polls just as television comics began poking fun at presidents and ministers. Then, in 2000, the satire Herrod's Law defied the government and opened to rave reviews and the biggest commercial opening for a Mexican movie. The hope for a changed Mexico came across to some viewers in the movie's final scene when a Mexican police officer with ties to the corrupt Mexican general becomes a DEA informant. His payoff from the Americans: lights for a kids' baseball field. "It showed us some hope for Mexico; that the Mexican cop was playing the game for something good," said Axel Burgueti, an Argentine actor and singer who now lives in Mexico. "He could have used his position for something else, but he chose something for the kids. "That's a good message." - --- MAP posted-by: GD