Limonov: The Ballad

 

Original title: Limonov: The Ballad

Directed by: Kirill Serebrennikov

Length: 138 min.

Country: Italy, France, Russia

Year: 2024

Premiere: Cannes 2024

Synopsis: controversial poet, political leader, paramilitant Eduard Limonov's life, adapted from Carrére's novel.

RATING: 3/5

REVIEW

The monumental work of adapting Emmanuel Carrére's bestseller novel Limonov has been anticipated for so long that the expectations for the film could not been higher, to a point that Serebrennikov's take just could not satisfy them entirely - yet, is potentially the best adaptation that the novel could ever get.

A provocateur, an outsider, an extremely controversial figure, the poet, politician, political prisoner and - according to many -extremist Eduard Limonov's life had to be captured by a filmmaker vexed in explosive, over the top narratives, something that Serebrennikov excels in. In fact, his exuberance in Petrov's Flu and almost dancing camera movements in Tchaikovsky's Wife seemed to prepare him for what was required in Limonov.

A Ballad, as the title insists, the film almost feels like a musical, with its elaborate, coerographed long takes that follow a wandering Limonov through the alleys of New York, for example, or the corridors of the nasbol headquarters, years later - yet, fortunately, this is only a formal similitude, and Limonov is far from a musical.

Serebrennikov immediately insists on the fiction of the film, which plays out on multiple levels: the filmic telling of Limonov often shows the secret behind "movie magic", letting the viewer know that te New York film set is artificial, or introducing Limonov in front of a theatrical red curtain, or the inacccuracy of the nasbol flag; additionally, this metafiction extends to the content of the story itself, it questions Limonov's own story details, suggests at times that they might be fictional - a reflection Carrére never does in the novel this explicitly, and thus an improving addition of the film to the themes of the novel.

Limonov: The Ballad is not devoid of omissions, some rather important, but at the same time, reincorporates several contextual themes and elements in reative visual forms or replacements: instead of including an important cameo from the book, for example, the film repurposes the characters of an ex-KGB agent, then FSB agent, to underline the continuity of corruption. Between the soviet and the post-soviet era - something that is discussed in the novel with an excusus that would have been out of place dramatically in the film.

Ben Whishaw, the only main cast member that isn't russian, is surprisingly well mimetised in the film as the protagonist, in a role that is much more intense, deranged and physical than his usual characters. His Limonov might be his best performance to date.

Ultimately, Limonov's life story becomes archetypical to explain the soviet and post-soviet russian experience, as it contains everything: the longing for heroism, the national pride, the ambitions and aggressivity of the same ideology that is today part of the russian government's narrative.
It is most definitely a sour film - as it is meant to be - but not a disappointing one