Olivier Assayas: "What's happening in Russia could happen in any other country."

BarcelonaOlivier Assayas (Paris, 1995), one of the great French directors of his generation, follows the rise and consolidation of power of Vladimir Putin in The Kremlin Magician, which premieres this Friday. However, the focus is not on the Russian leader but on the more discreet—yet equally murky—figure of Vadim Baranov, a fictional character inspired by Vladislav Surkov, ruthless spin doctor who designed Putin's trajectory and policy In the turbulent, almost explosive Russia of the 1990s. With a script written by Emmanuel Carrère based on the novel by Giuliano da Empoli and starring Paul Dano and Jude Law, The Kremlin Wizard It's a look behind the scenes of power and the seeds of fascism in the modern world.

One of the attractions ofThe Kremlin Wizard It highlights how little we in the West know about modern Russia and what lies behind its recent political changes.

— That's what happened to me when I read Giuliano da Empoli's book. Actually, I already knew many things, but at the same time, I knew nothing. I already experienced something similar when I met Carlos [Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist to whom Assayas dedicated his book]. a magnificent film in 2010I knew all the facts about him, but I didn't understand them. I knew everything he had done, all the terrorist attacks he had participated in, but deep down I didn't know how to connect the dots. And to understand modern politics, you need to read the news and know the facts, but you also need the perspective of time and reflection to unravel the complexities of what happened. Giuliano da Empoli's book allowed me to understand the hidden logic behind the transformations of modern Russia, and, along with my own research, to better understand the evolution of modern political power. Because this is a film about Vladimir Putin, yes, but as an example of what could happen in Western democracies.

Do you think a European or American democracy could turn into a dictatorship?

— All modern governments have closely monitored what happened in Russia and what is happening right now in Hungary or the United States. The language they defined spin doctors The Russian movement of the last few decades is being absorbed by politicians around the world, which has both positive and negative aspects. Politicians have realized they have complex new tools they can use to amass excessive power and distort public perception. But I also think ordinary people are becoming more aware of what's going on. They're somewhat more immune because they know it's evil and they know where it's leading.

Paul Dano's character formulates a theory at one point in the film about the existence of horizontal and vertical forms of authority, and how in Russia there is a yearning for vertical authority within society. Do you think this theory also applies to Western countries?

— The case of Russia is very specific; it cannot be extrapolated to Western democracies. Russia is a nation that spent the 20th century and part of the 19th under totalitarian regimes, and it possesses the best—and most perverse—secret services since the imperial era. At the same time, what is happening in Russia, the way democracy has been hijacked, could happen in virtually any other country. Because the type of autocratic system that has taken hold in the United States is not part of its history; in fact, it is the antithesis of American history.

The paradox is that, at the end of the film, Putin and Russia present themselves as the ultimate guarantors of Western values.

— Russia uses the internet and the media to manipulate Western audiences and destabilize democratic countries because democracy frightens them; in Russia, it is their antagonist, their great enemy. We must learn to identify their strategies of mass manipulation, and that is what Giuliano da Empoli's book and my film attempt to do: shed some light on the situation, explaining simply how it has evolved to where we are now.

Jude Law's portrayal of Putin explores his claims about the alleged humiliations suffered by Russia at the hands of the West as a real wound, not a strategy.

— You have to take everything Putin says with a grain of salt. The film says he's a pure product of the KGB, and that's true, but above all, he's a product of the Cold War. Putin is obsessed with the Cold War and how its end transformed Russia, leaving the Russian state completely dismantled. Russia was a mess, anarchy reigned, and the population suffered. Of course, the solution wasn't to reinstate a totalitarian regime, but to let democracy stabilize and give it time to take root. But the structures of the Russian deep state weren't ready for that.

And that's where Putin comes into play.

— Vladimir Putin's rise to power is linked to a specific moment in Russian politics when President Yeltsin was no longer able to lead the country, but also to the hidden forces that propelled Putin to the top of the government. In other words, the secret services and counterintelligence agencies were part of a plan to reestablish something very similar to the Soviet power structure, which at least maintained a degree of equilibrium within Russian society.

The film also devotes considerable space to analyzing the role of oligarchs in Russia, their rise and fall. What power do they wield in Russia today?

— Very few remain. And those few have become extremely compliant and deferential to the Russian regime. The period when oligarchs held power in Russia ended long ago. As we show in the film, the class that now controls power in Russia is the silovikiwhich is what strong men are called. siloviki They are men from the secret services, that is, the military. Therefore, it is the traditional power structure. Someone like Igor Sechin [former Russian deputy prime minister] is a good example of what they are. silovikiAnd Putin has created an extremely obedient network of individuals whom he completely controls. A new class, entirely dependent on Vladimir Putin, that lies at the core of the power structure.

"Hollywood is like Moscow," they say in the film. Do you agree?

— It's worse. [Laughs] I don't really like the way Hollywood is making movies. Their films are a reflection of the modern world, where only power dynamics matter. Any kind of reflection on cinema as an art form has been gradually eliminated from films. Hollywood has never been anything like a democracy, but it's getting worse because it's become one big corporation. It wasn't always like that. And the more it resembles a big corporation, the more it resembles the worst aspects of modern politics.

I was surprised to read in the film's press kit that The Kremlin Wizard This is Olivier Assayas's first English-language film. I had the impression that he had already...

— Yes, well, I don't really perceive it as the first one. Clean It was mostly in English, and also Demon loverThe problem was that both films were subject to French law, which stipulated that, to be considered French, a film had to have one-third of its dialogue in French. If we wanted to keep the funding, we had to count the French words.

The irony is that his first film in English is a story as Russian as this one.

— Yes, and I think 100% of the production is from the United States, so it's also my first American film.