The January 6th storming of the capitol made clear to Justin Kurzel that he should direct “The Order.” Speaking at the Marrakech International Film Festival, where his Jude Law-starring thriller served as the opening film, the Australian filmmaker said he had been looking for an American project to direct and the films that had the most impact on him as a film student were classic ’80s all-Americana dramas and thrillers by the likes of William Friedkin and Sidney Lumet.
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Kurzel got the script for “The Order,” a thriller about the early days of the white nationalist group National Alliance and was interested in the project. Still, it was after the storming of the capitol that the director “began to see images and references that feature so heavily in the film” and realized how vital it was to tell the story. Amongst these images were prop nooses alluding to the hanging of political figures and that feature heavily in one of the chapters of The Turner Diaries, the book written by nationalist leader William Luther Pierce and the National Alliance’s bible.
“Even though it was in the past it’s a very present story now,” he continued. “Since our edit and the film’s release, the point [of the story] has definitely sharpened in terms of what it is trying to have a conversation with.”
On the wide spreading of nationalist idealism, particularly in the US, Kurzel says he is “astonished at how normalized it is becoming.” “Groups like The Order were so fringe but are becoming much more common and visible,” he said. “There is a sort of normality in how they are placed. The Turner Diaries was something you wouldn’t have heard about before but is now becoming common in how it is cited. There is an alarming normalization of a lot of these ideologies now.”
“The Order” is another entry in Kurzel’s filmography to deal with the nature of male violence. When asked about his interest in the topic, the director said he finds it “very hard to answer this question,” even though it comes up often. “I guess I was surrounded by some pretty hard men. Male role models are very important in Australia,” Kurzel explained. “There is a question about masculinity that is sometimes connected to violence. It’s something I saw growing up and it keeps being part of my orbit.”
Kurzel has explored this idea of toxic masculinity within Australian society in several works, including “True History of the Kelly Gang,” “Snowtown” and “Nitram,” all based on real-life crimes that took place in his home country. Of the latter, which chronicles the life of the man responsible for the largest mass shooting in Australian history, the director said that he knew his film would suffer backlash but that it was a story he needed to tell.
“It was a taboo subject. In Australia, there have been painters and writers who tried to express something about these events and been shut down,” he added. “When [I got] the script, I was terrified to open it but I understood who that man was. I just felt like he was the one next door, which made it even more shocking. There was something in the script that was human.”
The director highlighted how the film also broached questions of parenthood in all its “pressures and anxieties.” “There was something about the [script] that made me terribly surprised in how much I knew this world,” he said. “I just knew I had to make it.”
Commenting on how he chooses his projects at this stage of his career, Kurzel recalled how he “used to be a real snob” about which films he would do. “Now, I learned you should have five or six projects being developed with the possibility of going into production,” said Kurzel. “When you’ve got someone else’s script, you might not see what you want to do with it, but when you start working on it and talking to the writer, something happens, and suddenly, it becomes personal. It’s amazing how you can shift something foreign to you into something personal. I’ve become less precious.”
Still, despite becoming open to a wider range of projects, the Australian director emphasized it is becoming “harder and harder to make independent films.” “Resources are becoming scarcer. Independent cinema is going through a tricky phase. Budgets are decreasing, schedules are decreasing, but we still need these stories to be told.”
Rafa Sales Ross is a Brazilian film journalist, critic and programmer currently living in Scotland. She contributes to Variety, BBC Culture, Sight & Sound among others, and can often be seen writing about Latin American Cinema and explorations of death and desire.
