NITRAM: An Ice-Cold Examination of Evil

Nothing could have prepared the small town of Port Arthur for what unfolded on April 28th, 1996, when 28-year-old Martin Bryant opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in Broad Arrow café, leaving 35 dead and another 23 wounded. The horrific tragedy is still considered one of the worst mass shootings in Australia to date and was responsible for a national firearms agreement that tightened all state and territory gun laws. As many questions have gone unanswered since that fateful day, it was only a matter of time before a project like ‘Nitram’ came along.

There’s always an air of uncertainty when a filmmaker chooses to salvage something that remains untouched in the annals of true crime, but Justin Kurzel is one of the few Australian auteurs whose body of work proves that those stories can be worth exploring with a sturdy moral compass and a clear objective in mind. With the grim ‘Snowtown’ and rebellious ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ already under his belt, Kurzel has returned with yet another challenging slice-of-life, only this time it hits different.

Fact & Fiction 

If Jennifer Kent’s ‘The Nightingale’ was any constellation, digging up Australian history to expose the dark side of humanity in its truest, most unrestrained form, is certainly a foolproof way to ruffle some feathers. And although this isn’t the first time Kurzel has taken a risk that could jeopardise his artistic integrity, it’s the first that the filmmaker’s fascination with the bleak horrors of reality serves a very different purpose.

It’s no secret that Bryant was a strange child, but it wasn’t until the strange behaviour from his youth seeped its way into his adulthood that those closest to him started to feel the unpredictable sting of its power, and that’s precisely what Kurzel chooses to focus on here. Apart from the occasional breakdown or mood swing, most of the time, Bryant seemed like any other young adult and that’s the scariest part about it.

Caleb Landry Jones plays Martin (or Nitram, ‘Martin’ backward), who lives under the supervision of his strict mother (Judy Davis) and emotionally vacant father (Anthony LaPaglia). His days are mostly spent watching local surfers catching barrels at the beach and wandering around the neighbourhood, often disturbing the peace with his unnerving obsession with fireworks. When he meets Helen (Essie Davis) – the eccentric dog-lady who sees his odd persona as less of a burden than a charm – the two form an unlikely friendship that soon leads to a toxic dependence on each other and naturally, it raises some red flags with the parents. After getting into a horrific car accident and then dealing with the sudden suicide of his father, Martin’s psychological state begins to rapidly decline, propelling a mode of destruction that drives him to commit an act of violence that would go on to change the course of history.

As the film’s inevitable climax draws closer, a deep sense of dread kicks in as we fear the cruel images that unfolded on our TV screens 25-years-ago are about to resurface, but reliving a nightmare that’s already been laid to rest was never a part of Nitram’s design and Kurzel’s final stroke of the brush still manages to leave a dramatic impact without ever damaging the bigger picture.

A Portrait Well Painted

On a technical scale, Nitram is crafted to perfection. Kurzel avoids any kind of stylistic flourishes that could take away from Shaun Grant’s screenplay, which unravels with a naturalistic effortlessness. There’s never an attempt to read between the lines. Instead, Germain McMicking’s crisp cinematography is utilised to capture the enchanting loneliness that is the trademark of Tasmania and it definitely casts a bewitching spell.

Landry Jones’ executes his portrayal with just enough nuance to reveal the human motivations behind a monster-in-the-making; there’s never an attempt to sympathise with his version of Bryant, but it also doesn’t shy away from showing both sides of the same coin either. The actor finds a careful balance between internalised sensitivity and aggression that can be felt in the finely-tuned grotesqueness of his physicality and voice. The supporting cast is also at the top of their game. Judy Davis is sublime as the mother whose years of parenting a child who laughs at her pain can be read in the lines across her face, while Essie Davis gives an outstanding performance as the kooky woman living with the curse of loneliness that came with her wealth.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

So many aspects about Bryant’s life and the consequences of his actions have rattled the outside world even after he was put behind bars, and its no wonder; the fact that, as a child, he was referred to psychiatric treatment on multiple occasions for animal torture, which also lead to his diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, or that years after admitting to his actions in court, his mother was still adamant of his innocence. Even the significant decline in gun-related homicides since the national gun reform in 1996 has raised some interesting arguments over the passage of time. Of course, these ideas are the sort that would have any filmmaker skating on thin ice if they dared to explore them further, so it’s clear that Nitram took the right route. Nothing was ever going to be as engrossing as peeling back the layers of a damaged psyche to reveal what human factors could have influenced such an irrevocable act of violence.

Kurzel considers this to be an anti-gun film and it certainly comes across that way at first glance. Yet, the final product feels slightly more complex than just an arthouse endeavour posing as a political statement. In some respects, it also translates just as an anti-bullying film that shows apathy and pure evil comfortably hand-in-hand. It’s a disturbing concept that feels simultaneously universal and intimate; we’re always close enough to the danger to feel its darkness, but never close enough to be poisoned by it.

Close to Home

It’s one thing when a film raises the whole ‘nature vs nuture’ theory, yet it’s another when the same film offers a glimpse into the mind of a tortured soul who – if only for a split second – we might empathize with. After all, the unyielding pain from the past can’t be ignored when it lingers like a dark cloud failing to dissipate in the cold light of day. Here, the real horror is found in the deafening silence of those same questions that will continue to go unanswered. As an unbiased commentary on mental illness, social alienation and the complex nature of parental dynamics, Kurzel’s vision will shake audiences in a way that’s unexpected and that’s its hidden power. Between the unsettling intensity of Landry Jones’ performance and calculated restraint of Kurzel’s direction, Nitram is a potboiling study of human fragility that doesn’t heal our scars so much as it asks us to accept that they are here to stay.

How do you feel about art imitating life with sensitive topics such as those found in Nitram? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Nitram will be released in Australia on the 30th of September and in the UK on the 12th of October, 2021. For other release dates, please click here.

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