Youth Culture in Human Traffic:

1) How can Human Traffic be considered a social realist film?

Social realism is the realistic portrayal of society and is typically a British genre. Human Traffic would be considered a social realist film from the themes it covers it youth culture - those being relationships, coming of age, drugs and clubs. Inter-generation alienation is a significant theme of the film including being directly referenced in a pub scene. The film shows the issues of alienation in society and how we are separated by age. Even into today in Britian, people keep to themselves in public.

The characters in Human Traffic are used to portray these different aspects and what society thinks of them, using real archive footage adds to the attempt to make it as realistic as possible. The highlighting of the particular themes in the film will have some influence on the audience, because we didn't see the negative impacts of the drugs like you would have thought, like a character being hospitalised or dying, instead the character gets severe paranoia, but has common sense and decides to stop. This common sense the character has does send a positive message implying that even if the youth are reckless they aren't all complete idiots.  

2) How does the youth culture depicted resist or subvert mainstream society?

The idea of youth culture is supposed create an identity for the young people and be different from everybody else. In Human Traffic the characters resist the everyday life, hating their jobs and wanting to go out and have fun. The characters despite being in their early 20's don't want to grow up and conform to adulthood expectations. This resentment to turn into their parents is visible so they turn to partying and clubs as an escape and excuse. 

3) What values or morals are presented in the film? 

There aren't many strong moral presented in the film. The film shows the characters as a close group of friends who look out for eachother, there isn't any rivarly or conflict, apart from Koop who thinks everyone wants his girlfriend Nina, but it doesn't impact the group that much. This shows the value of community. Despite the little negative impact of drugs shown in the film, the 'come down' after being high is shown in detail and is presented in the film in a neutral view point. The description isn't biased, but is well written in veiw point of the one who is coming down from a high. It teaches you the consequences, but it doesn't tell you whether it is necessarily good or bad. The film is more informative of what happened and is only reflective of the actions at the end, summing up that it will all come to an end and they will have to except it.

4) How can you consider the film to be British?

The film is a independent film and is set in Britian, based on actual events in the 1990's. It is based on events that happened in Britian, so therefore it is a British film. Social Realism one of the most common genres in the British film industry. The actors and sets are also within Britian.    

5) Analyse a Scene from the Film - Bar Scene

In the scene Jip is explaining and demonstrating how if we were honest to one another how it would normally go. 

 

The shot types are limited to a two-shot at the beginning, then a close up and alternate over shoulder shots. The over shoulder shots alternate depending on who was speaking at the time, this allowed the audience to follow the conversation and see the reaction of the other persons face. The shots also allow the audience to focus on the dialogue and follow the humour of the conversation, as well as the facial expressions on the characters as further emphasis.The cut transistions between the shots especially when they are conversing are quick, expressing the pace of the coversation as the characters want to get of the conversation as quickly as possible.The handshake action is repeated at the beginning of the scene, also highlighting the awkwardness and how neither characters are in their comfort zone, as body lanuage is a key factor when displaying confidence.


The dialogue is key when expressing the social expectations of society and the problem of social awkardness which leads to alienation of groups of people, as shown in this scene.

Felix: "I don't dislike anything about ya, but I don't like anything about ya either."

Jip: "Yeah... together we kinda surf the waves of social paranoia don't we?"       


Jip highlights a key issue in the social awkwardness and the alienation between people in society. It also demonstrates alienation and resistance of communication of people of their own age as well as maturer generations, which is obvious throughout the film. This alienation was also present in Quadrophenia with main character Jimmy, but this was only towards the end. In Human Traffic the social barrer between all young people is established from the start.