by Elisa Giudici
LIMONOV - THE BALLAD © Cannes Film Festival
A final surprise, though not a good one. With the exception of a fully committed star turn by Ben Whishaw, I would never have thought I'd use the adjectives "timid" and "indecisive" to describe Liminov: The Ballad on my Cannes festival bingo card. Not when the film is helmed by someone as bold in his views and choices as Kirill Serebrennikov. Yet here we are...
Limonov brings to the screen a decades sprawling portrait of an artistic figure suspended between the East and West blocs. What made Limonov famous internationally was the book by Emmanuel Carrère, who collaborated on this European production split between Italy and France. The biopic depicts the facets of a different kind of Russian "dissident," one more akin to Warhol for his ability to transform himself into a sensation and a product than to his contemporaries like Solzhenitsyn, whom he fiercely hated. During a TV appearance, Limonov's hatred is so incited that it leads to a rather explicit anal sex scene with his lover. In that sequence it's clear he's excited by her and by the fact that Solzhenitsyn "is watching them," and by his desire to outdo Solzhenitsyn in terms of success and fame.
In short, Limonov does not shy away from the more extreme aspects of its protagonist's life as a Russian exile in America: a thousand jobs, an unquenchable sexual voracity, a taste for excess and melodrama. The best aspect of the film is that Ben Whishaw gives substance and, above all, body to the character. He's present at 110%, even when, maddened by the end of his relationship, Limonov licks his semen off his fingers, embarking on a dizzying night in which, as punishment, out of curiosity, or as a self-inflicted wound, he lets himself be violently possessed by the only soul more desperate than him.
Whishaw, as usual, is immense, but the film relies on the strength of his performance without having something equally strong to impart in its narrative. Given that the subject is so controversial and divisive, a stronger stance, a critical angle, or something more than remaining mere spectators would have been beneficial behind the camera. Instead Kirill Serebrennikov lets Limonov's strange life unfold without commentary, and without punctuation.