The Wizard of the Kremlin

Published in 2022, diplomat Giuliano da Empoli’s The Wizard of the Kremlin is an insightful insider’s lightly fictionalized look at Vladimir Putin’s rise to power with the help of mysterious advisor Vladislav Surkov. In this adaptation, Olivier Assayas takes da Empoli’s political insights as the starting point for another of his signature meditations on globalization. While his 2010 miniseries Carlos showed how terrorism shaped geopolitics during the Cold War, here Assayas picks up the historical thread that followed. Showing the rise of Putin (Jude Law) from the viewpoint of fictionalized advisor Vadim Baranov (a mesmerizing, enigmatic Paul Dano), Assayas meticulously recreates ’90s Moscow. Beneath its dazzling surface is a strikingly personal meditation that, like the filmmaker’s autobiographical Something in the Air (NYFF50), considers the roles and responsibilities of the artist during times of intense political change.