Pubdate: Sun, 18 Mar 2001
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378
Feedback: http://extranet.globe.com/LettersEditor/default.asp
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/
Author: Ricardo Sandoval

SCREENINGS OF 'TRAFFIC' PROMPT INTROSPECTION AMONG MEXICANS

MEXICO CITY The acid test for the popular American drug film 
''Traffic'' started Friday in Mexico.

It opened on 250 screens throughout the country, the largest Mexico 
City debut 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 mischaracterizes 
their country.

Many of them are so upset that they are 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 across 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, 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 US 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.

''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.''

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 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.''

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 drug appetite and a 
moral ambiguity behind the drug-war rhetoric.

This weekend, ''Traffic'' is expected to top the $100 million mark in 
the United States and Canada, the traditional blockbuster barrier. 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.

The movie avoided copycat status by folding in true stories from the 
US-Mexico struggle against traffickers, such as the Gutierrez 
Rebollo-like character and the easy co-opting of Mexican law 
enforcement by dueling drug cartels.

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.

The authentic Juarez leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died in a failed 
attempt to alter his looks, according to Mexican officials and US 
Drug Enforcement Administration agents who saw the body and the 
autopsy reports.

The greatest success of ''Traffic'' may have been its seizure of a 
wave of national self-examination.

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.''
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MAP posted-by: Kirk Bauer