Dir: Justin Kurzel | Cast: Jacob Elordi, Odessa Young, Ciaran Hinds, Heather Mitchell, Masa Yamaguchi, Sho Kasamatsu, Simon Baker, Essie Davis, Olivia DeJonge | Australia, Drama 2025 | 5 Episodes
The Narrow Road to the Deep North offers an incandescently glamorous view of Australian high society during the early 1940s contrasted with the scaldingly hot tropical forests of Burma where a railway was under construction by of a handful of hapless Austrian prisoners of World War II all seen from the perspective of one of them, the camp doctor Dorrigo Evans, (a gently charismatic Jacob Elordi) who is struggling with his own personal demons: his scheming sweetheart back home (Olivia DeJonge) who promises to further his medical career, and his burning desire for his uncle’s wife Amy (Odessa Young). The story flashes back and forth from wartime to the 1980s where Dorrigo, now a cynical and world weary surgeon (Ciaran Hinds) engaging in another affair, this time with Essie Davis, reflects on his torrid love affair with Amy and his devastating experiences caring for his comrades broken and brutalised by the draconian Japanese warlords.
Filmmaker Justin Kurzel, known for his corruscating psychological dramas Snowtown Macbeth and Nitram,bases his livid feature on the book by Booker Prize winning author Richard Flanagan and brings alive the vicious brutality of the Japanese during their occupation of Burma, making these scenes an almost impossible watch even for hardened critics like me who have become inured to screen violence over the years.
This treatment of the young Australian soldiers posted in the dangerous tropical forests to build a railway is meted out in the name of ‘honour’ for the Emperor via the auspices of the serving Japanese officers tasked with completing the project, underfunded and understaffed.
The TV serialisation allows Kurzel and his regular co-writer Shaun Grant to fully flesh out the past and present storylines and the various characters. This a compelling piece of filmmaking best viewed with English subtitles and at close-up due to the hazy tropical atmosphere evoked by Sam Chiplin (who lensed The Stranger) and accompanied by Jed Kurzel’s signature electronic score.
You may cast your mind back to Divd Lean’s epic The Bridge over the River Kwai but here the Japanese hold sway impervious to the visceral suffering of their underlings who are entirely at their mercy, making the centenary for Victory over Japan day on August the 15th 2025 a day to be celebrated at all costs.@MeredithTaylor
NOW ON BBC TV AND BBC IPLAYER | PREMIERE DURING BERLNALE 2025