The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Hot on the heels of touring the festival circuit with his latest feature The Order, Australian director Justin Kurzel has already thrown himself into the promotion of his next project: the miniseries adaptation of Booker Prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. The first two episodes (out of a total of five) were presented at the Berlin International Film Festival, which just got rid of the Series competition the year before, otherwise the Jacob Elordi-led production would have been a clear frontrunner.

There are three timelines at play, intermingled and fragmented: medical officer Dorrigo Evans (played by Elordi and Cierán Hinds at different stages of life) remembers the time he spent on leave in Melbourne and Adelaide fondly, when he was engaged to a descendent of Australia’s Federation, but embarked on an affair with the wife (Odessa Young) of his uncle Keith (Simon Baker). These experiences are what he clings to during the atrocities of combat and when kept a prisoner of war, forced into construction of the Burma Railway. In turn, the memories of the traumatic events he witnessed in those years will haunt him forever.

While an interest in man’s ability to exert violence towards one another seems to act as a throughline to Kurzel’s filmography, the series differs in that it spends equal amount of time depicting the best of what human beings are capable of, as well as the worst. The brief excerpts chosen from each scene feel tangible, in concordance with the scattered and non-linear way one’s mind may recall a situation.

The protagonist is portrayed as a passionate reader, with a particular penchant for the poetry of Catullus, yet the show’s script does not dwell on dialogue, rather reduces it as much as it can. “Feelings weren’t as fashionable as they are now,” he says in old age, yet evidently feelings have always existed. Merely the verbalisation thereof appears to have eluded Dorrigo so far.

In a performance that pairs well with his preceding work in Oh, Canada, Elordi brings a quiet intensity to his interpretation of Evans, perfectly balancing vulnerability and strength. The role is honed down to completion by his counterpart, Hinds, who in his stage of the story, embodies a man battered by life. The Irish actor’s eyes speak to a number of unvoiced terrors they may have seen, and his Australian accent got the highest praise from his native colleagues attending the festival.

Off to an admittedly slow and devoted start, which stands out against the fast-paced and congested storytelling that currently dominates the format, one cannot wait to see what else lies in store on The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Selina Sondermann

The Narrow Road to the Deep North does not have a release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.