Limonov
by Kirill Serebrennikov
In his ninth feature film, Kirill Serebrennikov tackles Limonov, the renowned book by Emmanuel Carrère about Ėduard Limonov—a Russian writer, poet, laborer, and political agitator. Unfortunately, the film falls short due to an overbearing international production that flattens all language into English and the director’s decision to downplay the main character’s political dimension and his dialogue with history.
Portrait of a Young Man in Flames
Simultaneously an activist, revolutionary, dandy, delinquent, butler, and homeless person, Limonov was an angry and belligerent poet, a political agitator, and eventually a successful novelist. His life, akin to a trail of sulfur, journeys through the bustling streets of Moscow and the skyscrapers of New York, from the alleys of Paris to the heart of Siberian prisons in the latter half of the 20th century.
In one of the opening sequences of Limonov – The Ballad, the ninth feature film by Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov based on Emmanuel Carrère’s famous book, the action takes place in the Soviet Union in 1972. Limonov, who has not yet chosen his pen name and still signs his poems as Ėduard Veniaminovič Savenko, has left Kharkiv in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic—where he moved with his parents as a child—and his job at the foundry to seek fortune in Moscow. Near the capital, in a dacha, he attends a poetry reading featuring none other than Evgenij Aleksandrovič Evtušenko, the leading Soviet lyric poet of the time. It is here, in the fictional setting, that Limonov meets Elena, who on screen becomes the obsessive love of his life. The highly polished black-and-white cinematography, already artificial, is nothing compared to the fact that all the attendees (exclusively Soviets) speak English, with heavy Eastern accents, adding to the artificiality. What might be seen as a strong political (or ideological) choice to exclude Russian from the scene is, in fact, a much simpler reason: Ben Whishaw, the actor chosen by the Italian-French-Spanish co-production to play the main character, does not speak a word of Russian and is thus forced to perform in English, even though all the other actors are native Russian speakers. This disconnect highlights the clear limitations of a production filled with stimuli but lacking clarity on its focal points.
Despite Serebrennikov’s consistent criticism of the Russian government, dominated for over twenty years by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the president’s name is not mentioned even though Limonov openly opposed him. This omission might seem accidental if not for the fact that Carrère’s book has also excised the anarchic intellectual’s involvement in the Balkan War with Serbian militias and his political stances post-Perestroika. Viewers unfamiliar with the book or Limonov’s history would miss entirely the founding of the National Bolshevik Party and The Other Russia, and his place within the complex Russian ideological landscape. Similar to his previous film Summer, which focused on the lives of rock musicians Mike Naumenko and Viktor Tsoi, Serebrennikov seems interested only in the dialectic between artist and love, between genius-driven madness and emotional downfall. This results in incongruent and frankly uninteresting segments, such as the part set in New York, where Limonov’s critique of capitalism and staunch defense of Soviet culture—crucial to his political poetry—are only briefly touched upon. In these bleak times, where works recognizing the real weight of Russian culture are rare, reducing a complex, ambiguous figure like Ėduard Limonov to a stereotype of a mad, anarchic genius crazed by love feels unfortunate.
Sequences like the future writer slashing his wrists and smearing blood on the door of Elena’s house, trying to strangle her upon discovering her infidelity, or navigating historical epochs in an elaborate but artificial single take, testify to the weaknesses in Serebrennikov’s cinematic thought. He opts for agit-pop over agit-prop, letting aesthetics overshadow the ethics of his portrayal. Punk elements are prettified, the provocative becomes arty, and ambiguity turns into empty slogans. Reflecting on the book and Limonov’s striking insights about the beggars in the Samarkand market (the “true kings”), one must distance from a film that, while visually impactful, leaves the substance out of the frame. The final title—reminding viewers that Limonov supported Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea—only underscores Serebrennikov’s detachment from his subject. It is not necessary to love your characters to portray them, but engaging with them meaningfully should be essential.
Raffaele Meale
Quinlan, May 19, 2024