PLAYING WITH FIRE (NITRAM)
Some films simmer and eventually come to the boil.
Justin Kurzel's 'Nitram' is one of those films.
A powerful warning about gun culture, it is based on the real story of Martin Bryant who went on the rampage in 1996 in the Tasmanian tourist town of Port Arthur, shooting dead 35 people and wounding 23 others.
It was the worst massacre in modern Australian history and it resulted in stricter gun laws being introduced by the then Prime Minister John Howard.
© Madman Films & StanThe National Firearms Agreement restricted the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic and pump action shotguns.
A mandatory buyback scheme was introduced in Australia by the Government which resulted in the handing over of 643,000 weapons across the country at a cost of $350 million, funded by a temporary increase in Medicare.
The memories of the Port Arthur massacre remain raw nonetheless.
While 'Nitram' may have swept the boards at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards, as well as picking up awards in Cannes, it hasn't been without controversy.
© Madman Films & StanPoliticians, including the then Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein and Kelly Spaulding, the mayor of Tasman Council which includes Port Arthur, condemned the director of 'Macbeth' and 'The True History of the Kelly Gang' for attempting to make a movie based on the atrocity.
Kurzel, however, has come up with a sensitive movie whose central message is the need to pay close attention to mental health and to keep on top of gun control.
Caleb Landry Jones plays Nitram, a disturbed young man with a penchant for letting off fireworks.
Living with his parents, his relationship with his disapproving mother, played Judy Davis, is fraught.
© Madman Films & StanHe has a more lenient father played by Anthony LaPaglia.
However when Nitram is spotted by his dad hanging around the perimeter fence of his former school setting off fireworks in front of the pupils, it causes further tension in the family home and the wider community.
Nitram tries to keep on the straight and narrow by earning some cash from cutting lawns.
However his door to door manner is too aggressive and too menacing to land much trade.
© Madman Films & StanThat is until he knocks the door of Essie Davis' eccentric heiress Helen whose house is coming down with dogs.
Surprised that she agrees for him to cut her lawn, Nitram's petrol lawnmower breaks down.
Intrigued by the softly spoken young man, she hires him instead as a dog walker.
A close friendship is forged with Helen, who obsessively blasts music from Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Mikado' around her house.
She even buys him a car.
© Madman Films & StanBut even this process hints there is something not quite right with Nitram as he impulsively grabs the steering wheel while she is test driving the vehicle, forcing it to stray dangerously onto other lanes.
Nitram and Helen subsequently meet his mum and dad for lunch.
However frictions quickly surface over the nature of their friendship and Helen's purchase of the car, as Nitram's mum reveals he has no driving licence.
An angry clash ensues at home between Nitram and his mum which results in him packing up and leaving to move in with Helen who he adores because she buys him things.
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© Madman Films & StanNitram's father, meanwhile, has his sights set on purchasing a bed and breakfast but is crushed when he is gazumped on the sale of the remote farmhouse.
As his son practices shooting air rifles at Helen's place, she flatly rejects a request from him to buy real guns - insisting she will not have any around the place.
Helen and Nitram plan a trip to New York.
However en route to the airport, he lunges at the steering wheel and they are involved in a road accident that results in her death.
Inheriting Helen's wealth, this sets Nitram on a path where he can use the money as he likes which ultimately leads to him indulging his passion for guns.
© Madman Films & StanWorking from a tight, efficient screenplay by Shaun Wright, Kurzel delivers another piece of dazzling cinema that will resonate well beyond his homeland.
Strikingly shot by Germain McMickling, 'Nitram' is a powerful study of what happens when a disturbed individual can access assault weapons.
It is a cautionary tale about lax gun laws, powered by a de Niro-esque central performance by Caleb Landry Jones.
Winner of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Best Actor prize, Landry Jones delivers a troubling performance as Nitram which recalls de Niro's depiction of Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese's 1976 classic 'Taxi Driver'.
© Madman Films & StanLike Travis, Nitram is a loner who seems to have no qualms about how unsettling his actions are.
The film also builds to a violent crescendo like 'Taxi Driver,' as his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.
In addition to his superb work with Landry Jones, Kurzel extracts strong performances from his three other principal actors.
Judy and Essie Davis and Anthony LaPaglia deservedly swept the acting honours at the AACTAs where the film captured eight awards including Best Director and Best Picture.
© Madman Films & StanAs Nitram's mum, Judy Davis bristles with anger, bewilderment and frustration towards her son for much of the film.
LaPaglia is terrific as the softer parent - often too lenient and too wrapped up in his own unfulfilled dreams.
Essie Davis captures Helen's eccentricity and embraces her naivete and surprising companionship with Nitram.
It is to Kurzel's credit that we do not see much of the violence that Nitram eventually unleashes at the end of the film.
© Madman Films & StanThat's as strong a sign as any of just how acutely aware the filmmaker is of the sensitivities around basing a movie on the Port Arthur massacre.
Nevertheless 'Nitram' illustrates just how risky it is for dramatists to take a real life tragedy and build a story around it.
Kurzel and Wright deserve a lot of credit for how they go about that task.
Both of them skilfully craft a story which powerfully addresses male mental health and the dangers of a gun culture that glorifies weapons that no citizen should ever have in their hands.
'Nitram' doesn't deal with a gun culture peculiar to Australia.
It is a film that should be screened widely across the world and in the United States, in particular, where mass shootings are a more regular occurrence.
Kurzel's film will not in all likelihood change the minds of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene or their cheerleaders on Fox News who have been playing politics with gun control for years.
Nevertheless it doesnt do any harm to remind them of the need for stricter laws and the dangers of fetishising gun ownership.
© Madman Films & Stan'Nitram' should be a warning to every country about what happens when you make guns easily available.
That is why it is one of the best films of 2022.
The big tragedy of it all is that while politicians play politics with gun control, mass shootings will continue and death tolls will mount.
('Nitram' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on July 28, 2022)
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