I Worked for the Real Wizard of the Kremlin (opens in new tab)

Jude Law as Vladimir Putin and Paul Dano as Vadim Baranov, a fictional character modeled after the Russian president’s former chief of staff Vladislav Surkov, in Olivier Assayas’s The Wizard of the Kremlin. In early-aughts Moscow, Vladislav Surkov educated me on the finer points of “pop propaganda.” Now he’s the inspiration for Olivier Assayas’s new film By Andrew Ryvkin Do you want to see Mother Russia? Not the export version—bears, nesting dolls, the Bolshoi—but the Russia of Rilke, Cap d’A...