Limonov. Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. Cast: Ben Whishaw, Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Thomas Arana, Sandrine Bonnaire (Film, at the cinema)
Based on one of Emmanuel Carrère’s most famous books (who also makes a small appearance in one scene), the film tells the story of the late Eduard Limonov, a poet (I can’t say of what caliber, I’ve never read anything by him) and a “poser” (very clever). Ultimately, Limonov’s work of art, if one may say so, is his own biography. A worker in Soviet Russia, a dissident fleeing to America, a situationist in life, politics, culture, even sex.
In Carrère’s book, the narrator’s point of view is, in fact, that of Carrère, and every ambiguity of Limonov, almost a Russian Zelig, emerges in all its confused and confusing subtlety. On the contrary, in Serebrennikov’s film, dominated by Ben Whishaw’s performance in the title role, the point of view becomes that of Limonov himself, which makes everything a bit forced.
Andrei Strokin
Then there is an imbalance: the part dedicated to the period spent in New York is inexplicably long. Here Limonov is an alternative poet who makes a living by working as a butler in the home of a billionaire and to make us understand that we are in the transgressive Seventies, the director makes us listen to a few times too many Walk on the Wild Side at Lou Reed.
On the contrary, the final part is guiltily synthetic, the one in which Limonov returns to Russia and in 1993 founds a very violent political group, the National Bolshevik Party, which sums up a bit the worst of the far right and the far left.
That said, Serebrennikov is the right director for this subject (rock, pop, contradictory, anarchic) and the final result has charm and a certain epic grandeur. The funniest and most successful part, for me, is in the description of Limonov’s shameless envy (anger? contempt?) towards his hypothetical competitors, whose success he cannot stand, especially in the West: Brodsky, Evtuscenko, Solgenitsin. He detests them. Then, when, in France, the homage of the engagé intellectuals falls to him (we are all in fashion, for some moment in life), then Limonov starts insulting them. Rebellious at all costs.
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