The film Nitram shows the events that led to one of Australia’s most shocking tragedies, 1996’s Port Arthur shooting. An uncomfortable watch, it features a stellar performance by Caleb Landry Jones in the title role. It is now in theaters, digital rental, and on AMC+.
“Nitram (Caleb Landry Jones) lives with his mother (Judy Davis) and father (Anthony LaPaglia) in suburban Australia in the Mid 1990s. He lives a life of isolation and frustration at never being able to fit in,” says the official synopsis. “That is until he unexpectedly finds a close friend in a reclusive heiress, Helen (Essie Davis). However, when that relationship meets a tragic end, and Nitram’s loneliness and anger grow, he begins a slow descent that leads to disaster.”
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Nitram director Justin Kurzel about the film, the response it has received both worldwide and in Australia, and what lessons we can take away from it.
Tyler Treese: Congrats on the film. I thought it was really moving and I feel like it’s going to open up a lot of really difficult, yet necessary conversations. When you set off to make this film, what was your goal with it?
Justin Kurzel: Well, Shaun Grant had written it because he was living in Los Angeles and had some really close calls with some mass shootings that had happened there. And he just went home one night and just wrote this in a kind of fever. And he wrote it to really understand and highlight the importance of gun reform, and he wanted to do it through an Australian story. We had an event here in 1996 that changed the country forever and created some of the strongest, sort of, gun reform laws that have ever existed. So it was really about sort of taking an audience into the footsteps of an individual that you get to know, that you start to recognize, that you get familiar with, and then really kind of seeing and understanding how they, at their most dangerous, come in contact with this weaponry that you wouldn’t have on a military field and being able to sort of get that weaponry without a license and without registration and buy it, like you’re buying golf clubs. So there was something, when I first read the script, there was something about that scene, sort of having so intimately with the character that was incredibly powerful in regards to the absurdity of someone like this, being able to get access to these sort of guns.
When this occurred, some Australian media were criticized for their coverage, as they were manipulating images and trying to really just sensationalize something that is already so horrific and doesn’t need sensationalizing. When you’re dealing with such extremely sensitive subject matter, can you discuss just how you handled the subject matter?
I mean, look really delicately. I mean, I thought as though the script was incredibly sensitive and respectful in the first place, but, I think you have to go into making a film like this knowing that there are going to be those that are going to be incredibly upset about it being made, and there were, and there were those in Australia that believed that it shouldn’t have been made and that telling a story through the point of view of a figure like this is wrong. And that’s when you have to just start questioning every step you’re taking as a filmmaker and really trying to interrogate where are we and where’s the line here, and are we being as sensitive as we can be? But at the same time, asking really important questions from the story and from the characters. So, it’s been the hardest film for me to make because there’s an enormous responsibility in making it, and also knowing that there are those don’t want it to be made.
I know there were some of the victims’ family members that spoke out and were not being for the film. Were you able to have any of the victims’ family members consult on it or speak to them for any input?
We reached out in our own ways and there was some that wanted to engage and got back to us. There are others that obviously didn’t want anything to do with the film, and then when the film came out, there are those that sort of felt as though they weren’t contacted. It was a really tricky process because, usually with a film like this, you have a victims of crime group that is part of the government that allows a conduit to be between the filmmakers and the families. Unfortunately, the victims of crime here in Tasmania decided not to be part of the film. So it was really left to us to be able to kind of reach out, but at the same time, try not to sort of impose ourselves on those that don’t wish to engage. So, that’s been quite a long process and there are those that we could speak to, and then there are those that sort of didn’t want to or later on, sort of felt as though they wanted to reach out and sort of talk about their dissatisfaction with the fact that the film was being made.
How has the reception been in Australia versus worldwide?
Well, just in Tasmania, it’s been really interesting, because we made the choice to not advertise it. There were two cinemas in Tasmania that did decide to show the film, but we were very conscious that the cinemas had asked of there not being posters around and there not being anything that was going to be in the face of some in the public that didn’t want to see the imagery and to see the posters, or any advertising. So, it did play here and it was quite extraordinary. There were an enormous amount of people that actually came and saw the film. It had some of the best numbers were actually in Tasmania, and I’ve been quite astonished by the sort of discussions that have happened from it, especially from young people. A lot that were not born by 1996 or were extremely young, suddenly sort of wanting to know and wanting to sort of understand what this sort of deep, deep tragedy was that is very difficult for the state to talk about. So, it’s very much so there have been those that have been very vocal and don’t want…didn’t want the film made, but there’s also been many that have wanted to know more about it, and understand it.
You mentioned how Shaun wrote this after coming into close calls himself in America, and there’s this really poignant line at the end of the film, when it’s doing the kind of wrapping up ending bit, where it says that no state or territory has been fully compliant with the National Firearms Agreement, and there are more guns now in Australia than before. This is an issue that’s far more than Australia, obviously the United States and many other countries. Do you kind of feel like this film, it’s sort of a warning that history can, and sadly likely will, repeat itself if changes aren’t made to how we’re dealing with both guns and mental health as well?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think memory is really important, and it allows us to understand how we want to move forward in the future. Dark memories are things that we need to talk about and to understand. And I was deeply shocked that what I thought was super tight gun reforms in Australia…some of them hadn’t even gone through. Others, there’s been lobbying to loosen them, and yeah, I felt staggered that there were more guns in Australia than there were in 1996, especially for an event that was so seismic here. It’s a very different conversation when we start talking about America, and obviously, you would be aware of that more than anyone of just how many mass shootings there are in America each year to the point where it’s almost daily. So, I understand and appreciate that in Australia, even when those guns came out on set, it was really shocking and really unusual. We just don’t see them, and a lot of that has to do with the response and the reaction that was so compelling after the mass shooting of Port Arthur.
It’s a very human story. It’d be very easy to just completely demonize somebody that’s done the unthinkable and very much unforgivable, but you see the person in this film is deeply flawed and nothing’s glamorized. Can you speak to just how audiences have come away from the character of Nitram?
I think really uncomfortable, because I think there is this feeling at the beginning where the family and the street and the world, and this sort of character feels familiar and recognizable, and I think it was what I found so interesting. I mean, even talking to people down here about him and their memories of him are really visible of someone that you remembered seeing down the street and, they grew up in a pretty affluent area of, of Hobart. And, I think that that’s what’s really powerful about the film, is that you sort of get to know this family and you get to know this person and, they start to sort of dismantle before your eyes. And, you’re sort of seeing it, you’re seeing this sort of slow-motion car crash. You’re seeing the moments in which they could sort of change, or if this happened, or if someone had said that, or he hadn’t walked into that shop.
I think that was sort of part of how powerful the script was that Shaun wrote is that it seduces you into this world and into a sort of normality in a way, and then starts to kind of step-by-step, show you how this character becomes so dangerous and makes such horrific choices. That was always what was so powerful to me, is that gunshot scene, that the moment that you start to distrust this character, the moment that this character starts to feel extremely dangerous and unhinged, and a real outlier, more and more isolated, they walk in and start buying weaponry, like they’re buying golf clubs, without licenses or registration. And, the absurdity in the horror of that is what I found so, sort of, powerful in the screenplay.
I kind of came away somewhat heartbroken from the film, just seeing all these red flags and these failings along the way. Just the proper steps weren’t taken. A lot of people had their hearts in the right place, but it still wasn’t being handled in the proper way. To see it all laid out, and to have done research on the mass shooting itself and to see these events just play out in this film, it’s just so eerie.
I think there’s an element of the film that is about sort of caring for each other. I felt when I was filming it, I feel like I know this person from my childhood, you know? I know that’s the dude I crossed the road to not pass. I know that street, I know that family, that mother, I know what that fatigue looked like. I think that the film is sort of asking us to look out for each other more. That we all have a sort of responsibility to care for those that are starting to fall between the cracks and because things turn bad pretty quickly.
