The Wizard of the Kremlin Review: The Wizard of the Kremlin is directed by Olivier Assayas. Lovers of French cinema will know him from Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), Non-Fiction (2018) or Wasp Network (2019). Film lovers with long memories will recall his early indie hit, Irma Vep (1996). His work as a film critic, screenwriter and director has made him a familiar and recognisable part of the international film universe.
A multiple co-production is often the way to finance larger European films and Assayas has worked in this space continually, as in the case of Carlos (2010), a French, German, Austrian and Spanish co-production. Which is all a preamble to say that The Wizard of the Kremlin is a French film in English about Russia; from the get-go this is a montage of cultures and ideas. It combines fictional characters with very real historical ones.
The actors are French, American, Swedish, English, Dutch, Latvian and of course, Russian. British accents seem to dominate, followed by American. The money referred to in the story is always spoken about as dollars, so an international audience can understand what kind of wealth is being referred to, because which of us non-Russians actually know what 600 billion rubles meant in 1995? (138 million US, according to the Accessreel robot.)
The wizard of the title is the fictional Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano). His story is framed in a wide-ranging interview with Rowland (Jeffrey Wright), a veteran American journalist with a long connection to Russia. They speak in 2019 and the history they cover is the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s; the rise of the original Russian Federation and the changes it underwent after Putin became the President of Russia in 2000.
The Wizard of the Kremlin Review: Power, Politics and Russian Myth-Making
Baranov started this period as an idealistic young artist. He hoped the demise of the Soviet Union and Russian communism meant that he and his young generation would create a new nation where freedom of ideas and democracy would emerge. Theatre is his preferred medium of expression and he believes he has plenty to say, in a challenging way, that some might find puzzling and others would call pretentious. As he is expanding into the theatre scene, he meets and is much attracted to Ksenia (Alicia Vikander). She begins acting in his productions and as she turns into his sarcastic muse, we know without a shadow of doubt, that the soft, foolish Baranov won’t journey far with this woman.
This is merely a small chapter in what is a purposely episodic narrative. We are presented Baranov’s life as a linear series of events, some with massive historical links and effects, others of exclusively personal importance. Baranov narrates part of these scenes, intrusively to begin with and less so as the years pass. Dano affects an English-sounding accent which seems to be that aesthetic choice, in certain dramatic presentations, where one accent means roughly some other ethnicity; thus, here British-sounding English equals Russian and American-sounding English equals…er American. Older readers may like to refer this idea to the 1981 BBC television series Private Shultz.
Dano’s voice has a deadpan, hypnotic quality that is quite perfect for the psychology of Baranov. The man grows in confidence and power and to an extent loves to talk, but is he as smart as he thinks he is? That is one of the journeys we are taken on. Who is this man? Grasping this in scene after scene is tricky and hopefully fascinating for the audience. He manages to move upward, but this metaphorical ladder he climbs is neither obvious nor permanent, it’s an invisible rope ladder at best. Although time and again Baranov appears to choose the right steps, there are plenty around him who think they understand this new, ever-changing Russia and they sadly, do not.
We are given a series of snapshots of this transformative era of the Russian political story. We are told about and are shown Presidents Gorbachev and Yeltsin. If you don’t know the era, then there is commentary and montage to take us through them and to Vladimir Putin. When Baranov meets Putin, then the story comes into full historical focus.
Putin (Jude Law), a veteran of the KGB, is at this point, a Secret-Service icon who isn’t interested in becoming a political leader. He has an attitude that Baranov doesn’t fully appreciate, and although his understanding of what Russia is and could become is very different from Baranov’s, he is still intriguing to the younger man. They are seeming polar opposites, but each has qualities that the other can use.
Jude Law’s performance as Putin is aided by some excellent make-up, which would be AI if this were The Kremlin Has Fallen and he had a violent MMA fight with Gerard Butler. Law is trying for a quite different vibe from his usual work by playing the powerful and feared Russian leader and he succeeds much of the time. Dano absolutely achieves the difficult task of embodying a main character who is an enigma. Vikander’s Ksenia is also rather enigmatic, but this is partly a shortfall in the writing and utterly not in the performing. Did Assayas watch De Sica’s Woman Times Seven (1967) one afternoon? Is Vikander the Shirley MacLaine of this movie? Let’s leave that question to the Zeitgeist.
The Wizard of the Kremlin is undoubtedly a satire that plays its cards close to the chest. There are numerous figures prepared to explain what Russia is. The New Russia. The Old Russia. We are given a charcuterie board of different dreams of what this diverse and massive nation could be. We are shown a decades-long fight for supremacy in defining and ruling Mother Russia. Whoever wins this struggle attains the most power and for a man like Putin, absolute power is the point. He believes that throughout history, the Russian people have always craved strong leadership and a Russia that all other nations will respect and particularly, fear.
The movie asks how one should live in the world. Are any of these glimpses in these different lives or eras any more credible or instructive or admirable than the others? Over the course of the film’s thirty years, we are shown an accelerated version of the history of a nation that few of us non-Russians understand. Is this a cautionary tale? Or is this a darkly comedic version of a political fairytale that has plenty to tell us in 2026?
The Wizard of the Kremlin is a dense and clever film that will particularly appeal to fans of modern politics and history.
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Score: 7/10
