When medical officer Dorrigo (Jacob Elordi) licks blood from a wound off the inner thigh belonging to Amy (Odessa Young), who is also his uncle’s wife, it’s a bracing, viscerally erotic moment that captures the overall vibes of Justin Kurzel’s miniseries “The Narrow Road to the Deep North.”

The extraordinary first two episodes of the Australian filmmaker’s adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s 2014 novel screened at the Berlin Film Festival, introducing us to Dorrigo (played by Elordi during World War II and Ciarán Hinds in 1989) and the haunted memories of his affair with Amy back in rural Adelaide before being shipped off to battle. Director Kurzel has made the male criminal psyche his signature inquiry, from last year’s “The Order” to 2021 Cannes winner “Nitram,” all based on true crime events. In “The Narrow Road,” he locks into his most sensuous, atmospheric, and brutally violent study yet,...