NZIFF: The Wizard of the Kremlin

Actors Jude Law and Paul Dano star as Putin and his propagandist in an epic political thriller by Olivier Assayas, that shows how brutal repression in Russia is puppet-mastered behind a veil of manufactured illusion.

This dramatisation of modern-day Russia’s return to totalitarian, fear-based rule after a brief flirtation with openness focuses not primarily on its tsar-like leader Vladimir Putin, but on a one-time artist and spin doctor serving as his right-hand ideologue.

It’s fitting, because Russia is now run like post-modernist theatre; a surreal and shape-shifting land of smoke and mirrors, where the agency of citizens is neutralised by confusing them, and threats are disguised by sleight of hand.

Jude Law impresses as the poker-faced President who rose ruthlessly after the Soviet Union fell apart in the turbulent, opportunistic 90s, in this English-language adaption by Olivier Assayas of Giuliano da Empoli’s best-selling book. But it’s Paul Dano that steals the show as Vadim Baranov, who is loosely based on Putin aide Vladislav Surkov.

Baranov is drawn to avant-garde theatre in the flashy decadence of the Yeltsin years (Alicia Vikander brings a glittering edge as his freedom-hungry girlfriend). It’s just a small step from producing wild spectacles and reality television to stage-managing the outer facade of a renewed system of chilling regime control.

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