Though there’s usually always a sense of unflinching violence that laces the filmic work of director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram, The Order), his debut detour into episodic television, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, is considerably more blunt in its brutality. Perhaps because the prose at the series’ center – Richard Flanagan‘s winning novel of the same name, adapted by frequent Kurzel collaborator Shaun Grant – have a sense of familial humanity, the five episodes present a more profound layer of the filmmaker, encapsulated in the moving performance from Jacob Elordi.
That profoundness could also relate itself to the fact that Flanagan’s inspiration came from his own father’s experience as a war survivor, as was Grant’s; Kurzel’s grandfather was also a WWII veteran. The skill of their individual crafts and their clear connection to the material results in a haunting representation of some of the more traumatic episodes of Australia’s history.
Navigating that history is Dorrigo Evans (Elordi), a medical student who joins Australia’s Armed Forces in the 1940s. Dorrigo is presented at three pivotal moments in his life across the five episodes, with the 1943 POW scenes largely taking focus as his company advances through Syria toward the frontline. We witness Dorrigo’s loss of his fellowmen, the barbaric treatment of his capture, and the inhumane conditions of being put to work by the Japanese officers in charge of clearing jungle for an intended track construction.
The other moments of note revolve around 1940, where Dorrigo forms a lustful sexual connection with the young Ella (Olivia DeJonge), who comes from a wealthy Melbourne family and is eager for his hand in marriage, before he travels out to the country pub owned by his uncle, Keith (Simon Baker), and meets his “too young” wife, Amy (Odessa Young), who can’t fight her own attraction towards Dorrigo, leading to an affair of sorts. These moments allow sporadic instances of levity in the grand scheme of things, but there’s still considerable drama here that it speaks to how bleak the series is when infidelity allows a sense of relief.
Then there’s the 1989 setting where Dorrigo (played in his senior years by Ciarán Hinds) is a successful surgeon, married to Ella (Heather Mitchell), living a comfortable life on the Sydney waterfront, though, speaking to his nature, he’s carrying on an affair with Lynette (Essie Davis), the wife of one of his medical colleagues (Dan Wyllie). These latter years present Dorrigo as considerably prickly, reluctant to talk of his heroism, even when he’s roped in to launch a book celebrating the artwork of Rabbit (William Lodder), a soldier who captured his comrades’ more personal moments in a sketchbook.
The painful memories of Dorrigo’s past haunt his present, and Hinds wears it all on his face, delivering a performance that often speaks more in his moments of introspection and quiet. His interpretation of Dorrigo is hardened, but there’s a sense of authority that feeds into the sensitive work of Elordi. Whilst Hinds may not hone as convincing an Australian twang, there’s a uniformity to their embodiment of a man seemingly forever burdened by survivor’s guilt.
A towering achievement and culturally important, The Narrow Road to the Deep North may not have that instant binge-feeling that limited series can often adhere to – I wouldn’t be surprised if audiences took considerable breaks between episodes due to their psychological complexity – but it’s a crowning, cinematic accomplishment that revels in its sense of atmospheric brutality.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is now available to stream on Prime Video.
