Heavy Traffic

source: Heavy Traffic

First off, I don't give a damn about political correctness so no points off. Second, I grew up in the inner city so no points off for grittiness. However, I do want to watch a movie with something interesting to say other than people are mean to each other and out for their own self-interest. That's 90 percent of the movie. His dad is a POS Italian misogynistic womanizer works for the mob. His mom is a bitter Jewish shrew. He's just a lost asshole animator who wants to sell "Wizards". Feel free to watch it if you're wasted and want to watch some poorly drawn violent dark stupidity. Oh, btw, everything is excusable since Bakshi is making a statement about society. Sure. His "statement" about society is that it's violent and sucks.

R.B.'s best by far. I'm wondering how much of this is autobiographical. The only question being if it's 100% or not. Great characters. Seemed like more kept getting introduced then brushed off. It's like everyone knows everyone. Not for people squeamish about un-P.C. humor here. Every race took a few hits in the 'stereotyping' department. I think R.B. just tried to make fun of all of them. Mobbed-up Italians, Guilt-ridden (and inducing) Jews, uptight whites, flaming gays, and Jive-talking blacks. And the lead character's J.D. friends trying to hook him up. And did anyone notice the vintage strip show playing in the background during the bar scene? Looked like it was from the 1940's. Great film.

If you typically like Bakshi's movies, this may not be a good one to start off on, nor likely one to watch at all. It is missing the artistic beauty of American Pop and the comedy of Hey Good Lookin'. It is jammed pack with a confusing story about sleazy city dwellers. The movie combines live action and animation, though the majority of the film is animation. It opens with a scene at an arcade, and Mike, the main character (both in the live action and animated segments) is playing a pinball game. As situations arise in the film, we are constantly referred back to this pinball game in progress, thus being forced to find the connection between the two. There are a lot of different characters here that all impact one another, eventually becoming one story. Mike is a cartoonist. His father is involved with the mafia. His mother is a drunk who wants to kill his father. His friend is a transvestite. And, he eventually picks up a former hooker/bartender as a girlfriend, and together, they're going to figure out how to get enough cash to get the hell out of the city and move out to the West Coast. The story is confusing however, not only in the amount of characters you have to keep track of and their place in all of these interconnected events, but often, you are confronted with scenes without dialogue or some that don't seem to connect to the rest of the movie. Plus, there's a whole lot of people just looking to get laid, so there are a lot of naked cartoons running around, which is a bit frustrating when you're looking for more, not less, to help you figure out what the heck was going on half the time. Not to mention, once the cartoon story ends (consequently along with the pinball game), the live action story continues. Even though the fate of those live action characters were decided in the cartoon universe, it gets contradicted in what seemed like an unnecessary ending that also occurs in the live action universe. Bakshi cartoons are known for excellent animation, especially as you see it in American Pop, but Heavy Traffic, while fitting for it's day, doesn't have that same beautiful artistry as American Pop (even though there is about a twenty-five year difference between the release dates of the two films). I suppose, being one of Bakshi's earliest, it was more experimental than the later films. And it was one that I found difficult to appreciate.

This is the second adult-oriented animated movie I've seen with "heavy" as the first word in the title and which is also chock full of gratuitous sex and violence. I prefer "Metal" to "Traffic" because it looks better animated and engages in surrealistic sci-fi and "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy sequences. The sex in "Traffic" is also a lot more graphic. This is my baptismal into the world of Ralph Bakshi. Maybe it's not for my generation, so I really don't get what he's going for here. It's extremely weird, though not in a very pleasant or entertaining way. I'd read Bakshi was lead animator for Paramount and worked for many years at Terrytoons. "Heavy Traffic" certainly seems to draw inspiration from the old Paramount toons in terms of style, though he cartoon characters are deliberately cruder. Some characters seem like non sequiturs and are irrelevant to the plot. There are live-action segments which don't seem to make a whole lot of sense. This film's nihilistic to the nth degree. It all feels like some psychedelic LSD trip that's really not all that entertaining. Again, it's not for my generation. The X-rating is well-deserved. Tons of graphic sexual imagery and weird violence. NOT for anyone under 18! If I want trippy 'toons, I'll stick with "Heavy Metal" or lighter kiddie fare, such as that weird "Raggedy Ann and Andy" movie that was shown on Disney Channel way back when.

Heavy Traffic is everything you've heard it is... laced with some kind of bizzare sexual reference every other second (it seems) as well as totally insane violence, this brutal, bizarre and strangely sad film is worth one viewing, if for no other reason that to show that in the early '70's, Bakshi was pointing towards a concept of animated film that is only now hinted at. I would suggest (okay, I AM suggesting) that a lot of Anime, and the useage of animated clips in both Natural Born Killers and Kill Bill (vol. I) point back to this particular film. My take: watching the hero in "real time" is what the film is showing, with the animated bits being more inside of his head, until the end, where he is blown off by the beautiful woman that he dreams of, where we see one event that exists in his head (notice that it fails, but begins with an act of violence against the pinball machine, and also notice that the man playing with the artificial gunfighter is gunned down while a man >?< is getting naked in the photo booth) and another that ends with a sense that in a few seconds the Mary Tyler Moore theme song is going to begin. What is real? Well, in the head of someone that creates movies held by the only boundries made inside one's own head, it is a pointless question...

Heavy Traffic is only known by the hardcore Ralph Bakshi fan base and the occasional art house folk, but not by much else. Its probably due to its notorious stamp of an X rating and its inclusion of countless ethnic stereotypes that led to its obscurity. Don't be fooled, this is not a porno. It was only given the rating due to its raunchy humor, which back in 1973 was considered too edgy for the masses. It's no different than what Family Guy is doing now on network television. As far as the racism is concerned, it's brutal, but outdated. Every ethnic person In the film represents a familiar joke or stereotype of the time. Now, the movie itself is a triumph. Truly an underestimated piece of artistic genius from one of the greatest minds that has ever drawn a cartoon. Ralph pours his culture, anger, sadness, laughter and happiness into every frame of this film. Almost to a biographic extent. He considers it his favorite project, and its obvious why. From the music, to the animation, Heavy Traffic proves that its more than a cartoon, but a microcosm of urban life in the cruelest decade to live in it. If you can get past it's lack of political correctness, it's a great flick.

I felt that this movie was rather stupid than "an underrated gem" as some reviewer described it. There was no story in this at all, all you see is women sticking their * out, people taking drugs, men's pants going down and seeing their penises. What do they have in meaning? Absouletely nothing! Yeah I know the cartoonist is the lead character but, he ain't doing a good job really. I would definitely give this movie a 0/10 if I had the chance to do on here! It's lame, rubbish and just again, it has no meaning.

Can anyone give me one single reason why anyone should watch "Heavy Traffic"? I think it may be the worst film I've ever seen, and I'm saying that without a shred of hyperbole. First, the animation: I know a lot of people find it charming, but it stinks. Yes, there are a few good sequences and some clever parts, but 95% is just crude and terrible. It's something that would have been much better if put into live action. Why animate something when it would be easy to show it live? Second, the story. Where the hell is it? An "underground animator" (how cliche) hates his life and then goes out to become a pimp? Are you kidding me? There is no semblance of plot or logic. I know it's a "fantasy world" and all but that doesn't forgive Bakshi of not having any kind of plot whatsoever. A pathetic excuse for a script. Thirdly, the stereotypes. Gays, blacks, Jews, Italians, the handicapped, everyone is fair game. And while I wasn't offended by these creations per se, I just found them lazy and uninteresting. Is there anything that separates Bakshi's Jewish mother from any other stereotype of a Jewish mother that you've ever seen? I found this film a complete waste of time.

No real plot, basically a collection of events from the life of an angry young Italian-Jewish man named Michael inter-spliced with him playing pinball in an arcade, the one bright spot in his life being a black hooker named Carole. This is one mean, nasty, disgusting little film that is so relentlessly bleak and uncompromising in telling the viewer that life is a hopeless Hell that it's unbearable, and the incredibly bad animation does not help. Did I mention that the characters are mostly unsympathetic? Some genuinely funny dark humor isn't enough to relieve the strain. While I applaud Ralph Bakshi's efforts & desire to use animation for adults and show it could be used for more than just entertaining kids, he really drops the ball with this one, allegedly his personal favorite. Hell, his Lord of the Rings and American Pop, flawed as they were, were better than this.