The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2025)

 

            “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is a miniseries that recently debuted on Netflix. It is based on the novel by Richard Flanagan. It was directed by Justin Kurzee. The series focuses on Dorrigo Evans. He is an Australian doctor. The screenplay is nonlinear. One thread is Evans before WWII. Although engaged to an upper-class lady named Ella (Olivia DeJonge), he starts an affair with his uncle’s young wife Amy (Odessa Young). The second thread is during WWII when Evans was a prisoner of war working on the Burma-Thailand railway. As a doctor, Evans faces incredible hardships in his attempts to care for the other prisoners. The prisoners deal with diseases like dysentery, malnutrition, horrible working conditions, and mistreatment. Evans is the ranking officer and deals with the Japanese commandant. Maj. Nakamura (Show Kasamatsu) is a cultured Japanese officer who empathizes with the prisoners, but he is under pressure from his sadistic superior, Col. Kota (Taki Abe). The third thread is post-war as the elderly Evans (Ciaran Hinds) is on a book tour for his memoirs. He is married to the faithful Ella who puts up with his affairs. He is suffering from PTSD and it affects his reckless work in the operating room.

            The series begins in Syria in 1941. Evans and fellow Aussies are fighting against Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The men find a Syrian boy amongst the bodies of his family. Soon after, one of the Aussies and the boy are killed by a land mine. This scene is the first clue that the series will be harsh. The third thread kicks in with Evans being interviewed by a woman journalist. “How did you survive?” “Luck.” He calls the Japanese monsters, she counters with Hiroshima. Evans: “You have no comprehension of war.” Her: “Because I’m a woman?” “No. Because you weren’t there.” The second thread begins in Australia in 1940. Evans is a medical officer. He meets Amy who will be the love of his life.

            Returning to the war, Evans is captured when Java falls. He and other Aussies are crowded into a boxcar and sent to Thailand in 1943. Maj. Nakamura tells the men that they will be participating in an “honorable mission” that will redeem their surrender. The men start off naively accepting the job. It does not take long to discover what they are up against. There are several different attitudes among the men. Some work hard to prove they are better than the Japanese. Others shirk, sometimes with bad consequences for the whole group. Col. Kota is the stereotyped evil officer who insists on the men working beyond their capability. He is a bushido believer. “This is not a railway, it is a battlefield.” He pressures Nakamura and shows him the proper way to behead a prisoner. In the tug between morality (represented by Evans) and atrocity (represented by Kota), you can guess which attitude Nakamura chooses. He is ordered to send 100 of the men on a killing march to work on another section of the railway. He makes Evans do the choosing.

            “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” has been critically acclaimed. Most of the critics have been impressed with the depiction of the harsh reality of work on the railway. The film is harsher than “Bridge on the River Kwai” and “The Railway Man.” This is partly because since Evans is a doctor we get a graphic amputation scene. The thread set in the jungle of Thailand is brutal in spots, but these segments are only about a third of the series. Possibly due to budget constraints, the building of the railway is confined to a short stretch where the men are breaking rocks to clear a path. The series does not show a single rail being laid, much less a bridge. Oddly, most of the guards are not depicted as sadistic. Only Kota is demonized.

            The other two threads are soap operaish. There is a love triangle, but Ella only gets coverage as the supportive wife of the older Evans. Only the Evans of WWII is an appealing character. This Evans is based on Col. Edward “Weary” Dunlop. Dunlop was knighted for his efforts to alleviate the suffering of his fellow prisoners who worked on the railway. The younger Evans is depicted as a young man who cheats on his fiancé and it’s with his uncle’s wife! By the way, the uncle does not mistreat her. The older Evans is also an adulterer and is no longer a good doctor. This thread benefits greatly from the acting of Ciaran Hinds (who played Julius Caesar so well in the series “Rome”). So, two-thirds of the series overcomes the middle third. Obviously, I would have preferred for the bulk of the series to deal with the prisoner thread. Those scenes ably compliment “Bridge on the River Kwai” by showing a more realistic view of the hardships the men went through. And the series does not show the Aussies collaborating with their captors, unlike the movie.

            “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” reminds me of the critical reaction to the recent “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Critics sometimes laud war movies that show the grim reality of war and disregard weaknesses in the plot. It seems like critics want to confirm their belief that war is hell. It certainly is, but the story is still the key to a good war movie. That is why “Bridge on the River Kwai” is better at telling the story of prisoners working on the railway, even though other than Col. Nicholson’s trip to the iron box, the movie does not do a good job showing the hardships. However, since I have not read the novel, I can not weigh in on how well it was adapted. What I can say is if you have seen as many war movies as I have, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is not amongst the harshest depictions of war. If you are not a big fan of the genre, I can see why you might clutch your pearls.

GRADE  =  B-