Nitram
The highly unsettling story of events leading up to Tasmania’s Port Arthur massacre perpetrated by Martin Bryant. Nitram is Martin spelled backwards.
Seeking to explain the inexplicable, director Justin Kurzel asks viewers to face a gut-wrenchingly grim moment in Australian history – but rewards that effort with a gripping, well-acted character study.
Kurzel’s bold, daring choice - to avoid painting Bryant as either a pathetic punchbag or a monster - is the film’s greatest gamble and merit. With all its complicated efforts to both humanize and problematize its protagonist, Nitram doesn’t parcel out an apology, but something far more sinister and provocative. It blurs the distance between shooter and audience, triggering that most frightening of questions: what if it could happen to one of us, too?