“In general,” notes The Narrator (Jeffrey Wright) in Olivier Assayas’s engrossing political drama, “things in Russia go pretty well. But when they go bad, they go really bad.” Though it is set almost entirely within the realpolitik of early 21st century Moscow, The Wizard of the Kremlin offers a warning to the West about how that state of affairs came to be. Beginning in 2019 and flashing back and forth, it tells a story that harks back to the ascension of Adolf Hitler, as facilitated by German chancellor Franz von Paper in 1932, but also anticipates what’s happening now in the States, as Donald Trump’s administration sets about making Project 25, once written off as an authoritarian pipe dream, a reality.
Fascism is an easy word to bandy about, and The Wizard of the Kremlin is not about that; it’s about the modern concept of fake democracy, which is something much more toxic and concerning. And it’s fitting that our guide into this murky territory is an academic, a man more inclined to see Vladimir Putin’s Russia as an extraordinary art project, since, unlike the West, Russia’s poets and artists have more often flirted with the right than the left. A good example would be Eduard Limonov, subject of Kirill Serebrennikov’s 2024 biopic Limonov: The Ballad; Assayas’ co-writer Emmanuel Carrère penned the book that film was based on, and his subject makes a very important cameo, at a crucial moment, here.
Limonov, being dead, is one of the few characters appearing under his own name, and a pre-film credit assures us that The Wizard of the Kremlin is a work of fiction. It is obviously a complete coincidence, then, that its focus, and the man our narrator has travelled so far to meet, looks uncannily like Vladislav Surkov, an avant-garde playwright who rose without trace to become Putin’s key strategist. His name is Vadim Baranov, and Paul Dano plays him as a charming human smokescreen, speaking with an almost entirely uninflected accent, giving nothing away with his pudgy, boyishly round poker face.
Baranov is retired now, he tells the narrator, and he proceeds to look back at his extraordinary life story. Unusually, it seems that he is very reliable narrator, and the odd thing about him is that, for a spin doctor, he is entirely upfront. But that, in part, is what The Wizard of the Kremlin is all about: when truth is abandoned, what does honesty mean — and do facts even matter at all? These ideas are already percolating in Beranov’s head as he flirts with punk under Gorbachev’s progressive regime, inspired by Mayakovsky and the Russian Futurists to stage some truly terrible plays.
But Baranov is bored of trying to reflect his times, he wants to be part of them, which is how he becomes involved with reality TV and powerful television producer Boris Berezovski (Will Keen). Like many other Russians that come into Baranov’s orbit, Berezovski is enjoying the fruits of perestroika, blurring the boundaries of business and politics that will later lead to several assassination attempts and his sudden, unexpected death at 67. It is through Berezovski that Baranov meets Vladimir Putin (Jude Law), a former KGB agent who, initially, refutes Berezovski’s attempt to groom him as a potential replacement for Boris Yeltsin, portrayed here as crude, flaky and very, very drunk.
Well, we know how that went, but as entertaining as it is in streamlining the backroom negotiations that ensued, The Wizard of the Kremlin is a very thoughtful attempt to unpack the current moment. It’s impossible not to see how vital TV has been in this regard, and, like Donald Trump is doing now, Putin was quick to militate against his detractors, even forcing satirical show Kukly (Dolls) off the air after taking offence at his dopey puppet likeness. More importantly, the film shows how extreme ideologies create strange bedfellows, which Baranov uses to his advantage, funding underground biker militias and esoteric religious headbangers alike as ballast to prop up Putin’s hardline rule.
Unusually, though it clocks in at a hefty 156 minutes, it seldom drags, and it’s almost disappointing that Assayas, who did such a great job with Carlos (2010) didn’t take the mini-series route here too. Performance-wise, Jude Law is a surprisingly effective Putin, getting the President’s pout to perfection, and giving him a slightly abrasive Estuary English accent. Dano, meanwhile, is up to something much more mysterious and mannered, speaking in a gentle singsong that takes a little bit of getting used to. Physically, he’s a good fit for the role too, putting a benign face on a character who borders on sociopathic.
Remember, silver-tongued cult leader Charles Manson had the ear of many influential people (including The Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson, who christened him The Wizard), and so did Grigori Rasputin, mystic to the tsars, to whom Baranov is frequently compared. But as this sharp, insightful story shows, sometimes the most dangerous influencers wear a tie and come clean shaven.
Title: The Wizard Of The KremlinFestival: Venice (Competition)Director: Olivier AssayasScreenwriters: Olivier Assayas and Emmanuel Carrère, from the novel by Giuliano da EmpoliCast: Jeffrey Wright, Paul Dano, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander, Tom Sturridge, Will KeenSales agent: GaumontRunning time: 2 hrs 36 mins
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