Watching it back, twenty years on, I found Human Traffic an incredibly powerful reminder. It was the section at the start of the film where the gang are getting ready to go out, sorting out their schedule by landline, and with a lot of indoor smoking that really got me. It communicates the excitement of that time when the night is as yet undiscovered, a promised land of possibilities and expectation stretching out ahead.
It reminded me that that part was always my own favourite back in the day — the build-up, assembling a team of friends to take on the night and enjoying their company just as much as the DJ or the production or the million other things that get in the way. Watching this movie again reminded me how important it is - as a clubber and as an Editor - to keep that feeling, at the forefront of my mind, now and for always.
Duncan Dick is the Editor of Mixmag. Follow him on Twitter. Topics Human Traffic 2 Human Traffic. Related Content. Junglist Movement face masks crowdfunder launched to raise money for NHS. Human Traffic Live announces first wave of artists.
There are differences, of course. Trainspotting was a gut-wrenchingly angry and despairing film about poverty, an oppositional film which was a product of John Major's Britain, but whose unflinchingly bleak representation of drug use was sufficient for an obtuse Just Say No interpretation which earned it an endorsement from Mrs Virginia Bottomley. Human Traffic, on the other hand, is well, I was going to say Trainspotting Lite, but that isn't quite fair.
It is distinctive: it is higher up the socio-economic scale of Blair's Britain at the middle-class student loan level and really aspires only to replicate the euphoria of clubbing. The unphotogenic business of buying, selling and ingesting drugs the actual human traffic is kept mostly out of shot. But in style, it feels very derivative, with lots of cheeky pieces to camera from its characters, freeze-frames, and twangily ironic voiceovers.
Human Traffic, in its insouciant way, is a pro-drugs film. No one gets to climb out of a lavatory; there are no crisis scenes, no scenes in which four of them panickingly jog alongside the fifth on a trolley in a hospital corridor, with the doctor sternly asking if they are the patient's "friends". There is no Leah Betts hysteria in this film. They do drugs; they have a fantastic time; that's it. This is refreshingly honest. But it also makes for a strangely depthless film. I couldn't write about anything I didn't understand so I just thought about the stuff I did understand and try to make it fun and visually interesting.
But it was Cardiffian: "Nice one bra" and then it was "nice one brae", people used to say "nice one man", "nice one brae", right? Just like fun, you know? That's what I wrote. And then Danny was taking a view on the Welsh accent and I said, "well, just say it how you would say it.
I lived it! I guess I was just trying to put some kind of order into the psychological game that I used to witness and be a part of when people used to pass the joint around at the party but I wonder if that'll ever happen again?
That scene where we're dancing , that was eight o'clock in the morning, we were all exhausted at the end of the shoot and the people I'm dancing with are mostly the crew because we couldn't get any more actors on stage, they'd had enough!
And we had no idea what we were going to do, we were like, "let's just go for it", and that's how it ended — it was one take. I used to do that all the time. I was always blagging into clubs. I never had any money and clubs were expensive, especially the big nights, and all my friends would be in already and I just used to get into the party by any means possible.
The success of the film changed your life over night - how did you deal with that? When the film came out it was a massive relief that the people got it and that it was received how it was. I love music, I love dancing, I love people. I love fun. Producers went through the official routes. He was a unique character and I became good friends with him afterwards.
I remember when he turned up on set, he was hilarious. We all miss him massively. Carl turned up with his friends and everyone got the scene and was excited to make it and we had fun making the film. Carl was playing, Danny Rampling was playing, and we had one of the best parties in Cannes that year, people were queueing round the block. Home Latest News Menu.
Will it still be called Human Traffic 2: The Revolution? It's definitely gonna be called Human Traffic 2. Is it still going to be set between Cardiff and Ibiza? Does your new short film iMan offer hints at what we can expect? Are you still in touch with the original cast? So the original cast are on board? What did you think of Ibiza? What are your early memories of Danny Dyer? Read this next: Watch Chris Inperspective's tribute to Human Traffic How much did the film mimic your life at the time?
How did you come up with spliff politics?
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