The Wizard of the Kremlin

Adapting Giuliano da Empoli’s award-winning book, Olivier Assayas follows the rise and fall of Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a former theatre and TV director who becomes Vladimir Putin’s (Jude Law) right-hand man, helping the modern tsar shape Russia into the 21st century’s emblematic autocracy.

In The Wizard of the Kremlin, Baranov – a fictionalised version of the real-life Kremlin advisor Vladislav Surkov – recounts his life story to an American journalist (Jeffrey Wright), from his university days in the early 1990s to his career as a theatre and TV director who eventually became Putin’s “man behind the tsar”. Overseeing the Chechen War, the monopolisation of power and the Ukrainian invasion, while living a twisted love story with his wife (Alicia Vikander), Baranov’s journey doubles as a tale of how Russia went from the leadership crisis of the post-Soviet era to the 21st century’s most feared empire.

As a result, Jude Law may play the Kremlin’s emperor, but Baranov is the real centre of attention for director Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper, IFFR 2017; Doubles vies, IFFR 2019). Writing the playbook of current world politics, this ruthless, unscrupulous protagonist is the film’s most intriguing presence. In a cold and unnerving performance, Paul Dano challenges us to judge his amoral soliloquies justifying the politics of power at any cost that has shaped the world as we know it today. 

– Daniel Oliveira

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