When Justin Kurzel took on the task of directing “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” the harrowing and highly-anticipated adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel, he wasn’t just tapping into the dark heart of Australia’s war history. He was stepping into a story deeply rooted in his own family’s past.
In a recent Variety AU/NZ interview, the acclaimed Australian director revealed that his grandfather was one of the ‘Rats of Tobruk’, an outnumbered garrison of Australian soldiers who held the Libyan deep-sea port for eight brutal months, despite being surrounded by Axis forces. Kurzel shared that his grandfather’s haunting memories of the battle left him with a “fog of war” that affected not just him but his family as well.
“I grew up really present around veterans. My grandfather on one side – I sort of saw most days this fog of war around him, and how it affected his partner and children. Whereas my 19-year-old girls really are not close to it. They understand it from afar,” he said.
It also helped Kurzel that he was “a good mate” of Flanagan before becoming attached to the project.
“I was actually in London, when he [Flanagan] won the Man Booker Prize, so we celebrated with him the night after,” Kurzel revealed. “I was at his shack on Bruny Island where he wrote the book. We were talking about the fact that he just sold the rights to it and said whether I’d be interested in doing it. I was quite apprehensive about it, because it’s such a good book.”
An adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel by Richard Flanagan, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is a love story set against the backdrop of World War II.
Jacob Elordi portrays Lieutenant-Colonel Dorrigo Evans and co-stars with Odessa Young (“Mothering Sunday,” “Shirley”). Ciaran Hinds (“Belfast”) plays the older version of Evans.
Flanagan’s novel, published in 2013, chronicles a century dominated by war, with forced labor on the Thai-Burma Railway and a brief love affair as its dramatic heart.
The story is told over multiple time periods by an Australian doctor who was taken prisoner during World War II and became an unlikely and uncomfortable hero after the war’s end. The journey moves from the doctor’s’ childhood, through to his experience as a prisoner-of-war on the Thailand-Burma Railway as a young man, and later in life, as a respected surgeon and Australian war hero.
“‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ is a love story to sustain audiences through the darkest of times, an intimate character study illustrating the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity, and an investigation into a marriage and an unforgettable love affair,” said Prime Video in a statement.
Kurzel told Variety AU/NZ that he was “really taken by the love story in it. This idea of someone having this really intense relationship. These six weeks of this summer of love. Then how this person he turns to through the POW experiences and how she becomes almost bigger than the relationship that they had.”
On Elordi, the director noted “there was a grace and a dignity in the way it came across on screen that I thought would be perfect for Dorrigo,” adding that he “was a really big fan of his.”
Kurzel also had high praise for Elordi’s co-star Young: “[…] I was looking for an actress that was incredibly inventive and playful. I knew that a lot of those love scenes I wanted to sort of improvise a lot of the material. An actress that had an energy and a sense of playfulness and fun.
“[…] I’d seen the work of [Odessa] and thought she was really exciting. It was quite instant the idea of those two. But once Jacob came on board it made the series very doable. It had been sort of sitting there for probably five or six years. That movement at that stage in his career really brought a lot of interest that allowed us to kind of make it in a way.”
Young returned the praise, telling Variety AU/NZ that Kurzel is “a very intuitive director and a very impulsive director. He loves improvisation and he loves throwing things at you in the room and making this scene very much based on his feeling and vision.”
Kurzel’s previous works, such as the grisly “Snowtown,” his directorial debut based on the shocking “bodies in barrels” murders, and the unsettling “Nitram,” which traced the events leading up to the infamous Port Arthur massacre, showcase his longstanding engagement with Australia’s darkest history.
Read more insights into “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” from Kurzel here.
“The Narrow Road to the Deep North” is produced by Curio Pictures, with Jo Porter and Rachel Gardner serving as executive producers. Flanagan, Shaun Grant, and Kurzel are also executive producers, with Alexandra Taussig as producer.
All five episodes of the Australian Original series are now available to watch on Prime Video in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.