VENICE — The spotlight at the Venice Film Festival turned sharply toward geopolitics on Sunday, as Jude Law unveiled his transformation into Vladimir Putin in The Wizard of the Kremlin, a tense political drama by French director Olivier Assayas.
The British actor, 52, immersed himself in the former KGB officer’s world, studying hours of footage to capture his rigid posture, icy stares, and deliberate gait. “It can become consuming,” Law admitted. “You start searching for every nuance, every tiny movement, hoping to find what lies behind the mask.”
While makeup and prosthetics sharpened the physical resemblance, Law emphasized he was not interested in mimicry. “It wasn’t about impersonation—it was about inhabiting what he represents,” he explained.
Assayas reinforced that point, saying he wanted Law to embody the chilling presence of authority rather than simply replicate a politician’s mannerisms.
A Tale of Power and Control
Running nearly two and a half hours, the film traces Russia’s volatile shift from post-Soviet uncertainty to Putin’s entrenched rule. It follows a fictional political strategist, Vadim Baranov—played by Paul Dano—who narrates the consolidation of power, the taming of oligarchs, and the silencing of dissent.
The project draws from Giuliano da Empoli’s bestselling novel, offering not just a biographical sketch but an allegory about modern authoritarianism. “It’s a story about what politics has become,” Assayas said. “And it’s a warning about the fragility of democratic systems in our time.”
Festival Spotlight
The film is among 21 titles vying for the festival’s prestigious Golden Lion. Alongside Assayas’s political meditation, the weekend program featured the premiere of Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother, a quiet ensemble drama with Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver, and Tom Waits, which Jarmusch has described as “an anti-action film.”
Audiences also buzzed about Guillermo del Toro’s lavish new Frankenstein, a Netflix-backed production headlined by Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, which critics alternately hailed as “uncommonly beautiful” and dismissed as “overblown spectacle.”
Politics on the Fringe
Beyond the red carpet, real-world politics surged into the festival atmosphere. Demonstrations over Israel’s war in Gaza brought thousands to the streets in Venice, underscoring the tension between cinema as art and cinema as political voice.
Later this week, Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania will present The Voice of Hind Rajab, revisiting the harrowing death of a Palestinian child, with Hollywood heavyweights Brad Pitt, Jonathan Glazer, and Joaquin Phoenix joining as executive producers.
The Stakes of Storytelling
For Assayas and Law, The Wizard of the Kremlin is more than a historical reimagining—it is a mirror held up to the present. “This is not just Russia’s story,” Assayas warned. “It’s a story about all of us, and the dangerous currents shaping politics today.”
