Director

Justin Kurzel

Australia | 2021 | 110 min | English

• Producer Nick Batzias, Virginia Whitwell, Justin Kurzel, Shaun Grant
• Production Company Good Thing Productions
• Screenplay Shaun Grant
• Cinematography Germain Mcmicking
• Editing Nick Fenton
• Sound Steve Single
• Cast Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Anthony Lapaglia, Phoebe Taylor
• Contacts

  Wild Bunch International
  

  smichel@wildbunch.eu

  Middle East Distributor

  Teleview International

  info@teleview-int.tv

About the Film

In 1996, a lone gunman entered the historic Port Arthur seaside grounds in Tasmania, Australia, killing 35 people and wounding 22 others. Screenwriter Shaun Grant says: “Yes, we should have films that celebrate Australia[‘s] triumphs, its natural beauty...But we should not shy away from the uncomfortable.”

That psychic wound is still so fresh that Screen Tasmania avoided any collaboration with the filmmakers of Nitram and it was shot instead in Victoria. On its release, many locals vowed not to see it. The horror that people felt during that day of massacre, still burns bright in their memories. This becomes the visceral metaphor of the film when it opens with fireworks, with the lone gunman, Martin (Nitram spelt backwards plus also a connotation of his outsider status) playing fireworks with children, and a flashback of him as a child always playing dangerously. This idea of playing with danger threads throughout the film, first with an air rifle that Nitram (played by Caleb Landry Jones, Best Actor winner at Cannes) was gifted as a child, then later with his playfulness of taking over the steering wheel while someone else is driving the car. This latter act causes a road accident that kills his only friend, Helen (played by Essie Davis), a lonely heiress who leaves her wealth to Nitram. Nitram suffers from an overly nervous psychology and high level of aggression. He is close to his father (played by Anthony LaPaglia) but is constantly traumatized by his judgmental mother (tensely performed by Judy Davis).

Following his father’s death, Nitram is cut off from any roots of acceptance and comfort. Director Justin Kurzel opts to tell the story from Nitram’s point of view. The layered psychological drama avoids the sensation of the killing field. The film’s violence is instead emotional, and the killings take place offscreen. Perhaps the film’s most critical scene is when Nitram goes to buy his guns in preparation for the massacre. The ease in which the guns were bought is the film’s statement that Australian gun laws have failed. While new gun controls were enacted after the 1996 killings, today, more guns than ever are owned privately.

Philip Cheah