Nitram (2021)

Never shy of pursuing difficult and controversial subjects, Nitram is Justin Kurzel’s chilling portrait of the man who committed the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania in 1996. Surrounded by an important debate over whether the film should have been made at all, the director’s third collaboration with writer Shaun Grant is a well drawn and thought provoking piece. Telling the story of a murderer, it focuses primarily on the elements in society and the character’s psychological and intellectual makeup that led to the tragic outcome, rather than the act of violence itself.

Starring Caleb Landry Jones as the title character, whose real name isn’t heard once throughout the film, Nitram follows the everyday existence of a man who since childhood has seemingly been at odds with the world around him. While this performance can seem hollow at times, it moreso reinforces the disconnect between the film’s subject and the world he inhabits. Nitram presents (and confronts) the audience with this man’s perspective, crippled by an intellectual disability which leaves him isolated and resentful of almost everyone he encounters. The hand held cinematography and 1.55:1 aspect ratio creates a compounded sense of the character’s world; fragile and fluid, while also feeling boxed in. These choices, combined with high angles positioned in corners in certain interior scenes, mark the work of DoP Germain McMicking as one of the film’s strongest elements.

Landry Jones is supported by a stellar cast of heavyweight Australian talent. Anthony Lapaglia and Essie Davis are almost transformative in their roles as the gunman’s father and older female companion, respectively. Judy Davis is singularly brilliant as a mother conflicted by the understanding of her son’s complete lack of empathy and the love she cannot help but feel for him. Her perspective is really the only other one highlighted in the film aside from that of the lead character’s and, as a result, is the only person who might draw some empathy. The filmmakers have been excessively careful not to craft a tale of tragic lonerism for their representation of Bryant’s life or his actions. This seems like a move towards respecting the audience’s ability to discern for themselves an interpretation and judgement of a man who undoubtedly knows to some degree that actions do have consequences, even if it does appear that he is incapable of ascribing to them the same weight that greater society would do.

In the end, Kurzel’s film will divide and certainly challenge filmgoers in a way that well suits the choice of subject and the conception with which it is presented. Though it doesn’t cover every aspect of Bryant’s life as faithfully as straight reporting of the facts would do, one must be aware of the film as a work of art and interpretation which seeks to present just one possible understanding and account of a life that destroyed so many others. In that sense, Nitram is a compelling, however grim work of spectacle and, to some extent, speculation. The message it delivers on the subject not only of gun control, but more prominently on neglect and systemic failure in community and healthcare are reason enough to see and judge it by it’s own merits as a film, rather than dismissing it outright as a callous and unnecessary depiction of an event that still looms large in Australian and world history.

4.5/5