Nitram

Nitram is the difficult story of a very emotionally disturbed young man and the circumstances of his life that led to utter tragedy. The film is more a character study than anything else and for that reason it can be very hard to watch. Caleb Landry Jones shines in the leading role and engages the viewer in this sad and tragic story, fully encompassing the suffering and cruelty of the real life man the story portrays. I don't think enough can be said about his performance, but this film won't be for everyone.

Dark and disturbing, Nitram is a film that causes us anxiety even knowing what is coming. Or precisely because we know what is coming.

A lot has to fail for such tragedies to happen, but life and the world are really full of these failures that continue to happen every day and we continue to look the other way. Mental health and the way it is seen by society - including those who should protect us - is one of the themes that this film gets right. It is also right when it tells us that weapons will never be in the right hands because there are no right hands to hold a weapon. What is a good hand today may be a bad hand tomorrow. There is a long way to go on this path and not even the minimum of the minimums is done.

Caleb Landry Jones' performance is impressive. I saw the character in it. I saw the traumas, the difficulties, the attempts, the rejections, and all the confusion in his head. And, unfortunately, I also saw exits that he did not see. All the characters around him are well-created and deserve case studies in their own right. They all want something different for him, and many end up doing wrong in the process.

With a raw direction and a slow pace (a cut with less 10 minutes would have been beneficial), this is a film that knows what it wants and what it has to be. It's not supposed to be a pleasant experience. It is necessary. It is required. It exists because now and then we need a hard punch in the stomach to realize where we are all failing.

The fragility of serenity, shattered by hostility, insanity and marginiality, supported through ineffective laws, ignorance and depravity. An awful story of disbelief with performances that leave you aghast at the events that took place, the processes that led up to them, and wondering just how far away we are from the next one and if anything could ever be (genuinely) done in prevention.

Justin Kurzel's most recent excavation of an Australian tragedy is well worth the watch, with its powerhouse performances (Well done, Landry Jones!) as well as its apt score. I truly admire Grant's scriptwriting, and Kurzel's decision to keep the violence implied. If anything, it amplified the effect intended.

*Watched at Cannes 2021 World Premiere*

The career of Australian director Justin Kurzel, still very much in an early phase, has been one filled with drastic ups and downs. Kurzel broke onto the scene in 2011 with his feature debut, "The Snowtown Murders," which played as part of the Cannes Critics Week. That film's success immediately gave him the confidence to helm a much more violent and haunted adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth", with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard in the lead roles. He also was given the promotion of competing in the main competition of Cannes.

After that film's critical success, Hollywood came knocking as he was offered, and accepted, to direct the big-screen adaptation of the popular video game franchise "Assassin's Creed", which allowed him to reteam with Fassbender and Cotillard. However, Kurzel wasn't able to make the leap into studio filmmaking, as the film was a critical and commercial bomb. He tried to recompose himself a few years later by going back to his roots with the Australian true-crime-thriller "The True History of the Kelly Gang." The relative success of that film didn't prompt Kurzel to return to the big studios, instead, he has doubled down on his newfound career path with "Nitram", which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film tells the life story of Tasmanian native Martin Bryant, who eventually was responsible for the largest massacre by a single person in Australian history after he killed 36 people at Port Arthur in 1996. From the very start, Bryant was beset with mental problems that made him act aggressively towards others and hold little concern for human safety. After he was sentenced to life in prison (where he remains to this day), Bryant was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and deemed to have an IQ of 66, roughly the same as an eleven-year-old.

The title of the film (which is Martin spelled backward) comes from the nickname Bryant was given by childhood bullies, further hindering him from forming any human connections. American Caleb Landry Jones plays the titular character with brilliance, showcasing how far someone can go down the rabbit hole. Jones has made a small name for himself by playing supporting parts as sleazy weirdos in films such as "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "Get Out". In his first major leading role, he has knocked it out of the park. He produces the fear one gets from a horror movie villain while still bringing enough authenticity to fit the film's grounded tone. His win for Best Actor at Cannes was well deserved, and some Oscar buzz should be in order.

Also within the cast is frequent Kurzel collaborator Effie Davis, who plays Bryant's much older companion Helen, who lives alone in a rundown mansion with fourteen dogs and several dozen cats. Bryant and Helen formed a connection based on their status as social outcasts, which Jones and Davis are able to explore. Their interactions together are awkward and fractured, and never answer the question of exactly what kind of relationship they share.

Anthony LaPaglia and Judy Davis, both of whom are superb, portray Bryant's parents, who have differing perspectives on how they should keep their son safe. LaPaglia prefers to give Bryant a bit of freedom in hopes that he will figure out the world for himself, while Davis feels that he is incapable of doing such a thing and must be kept on a short leash.

Making a biopic about a country's worst human offender brings with it a lot of trap doors, such as vindicating the perpetrator or glorifying the harm that they caused. Thankfully, Kurzel avoids those errors as he approaches the film with a matter-of-fact style that only wants to illustrate how this event was allowed to happen. Abandoning the flashy style he is known for, Kurzel lets the actors and simple camerawork tell the story. I was reminded of Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" while watching the film at its world premiere. There is not one singular grand answer as to why this happened and how it could have been stopped, simply because there isn't a one-size-fits-all response. All we can do is look back on what happened and see what can be done for the future, which Kurzel doesn't seem to have much hope for as his postscript explains how the gun laws enacted as a result of Bryant's actions have not been properly enforced, opening the possibility of this happening again.

Justin Kurzel's "Nitram" was one of the best films out of the Cannes Film Festival as it explores a real-life tragedy with both grace and severity. While my body hated the experience of watching the film because of the stiff muscles I was left with due to the intensity, my mind was left with a better understanding of this dark chapter in human history.