The mark of a truly captivating piece of art is if it can make you feel nostalgic for a place and time you never experienced. In the case of Leto, one both pines and winces for early 1980s Leningrad. A deft, intelligent film, director Kirill Serebrennikov makes use of stylised, immersive sets which invite us into this period head-first with no visible exit. Leto, or summer to non-Russophiles, grapples with the tensions of a non-conformist subculture — rock music — in Soviet society. But more than this, it studies the human relationships of rockstars Viktor Tsoi, Mike Naumenko and his wife Natalya, asking vital questions about love, desire, heartache and freedom of expression.

The film parallels the rise of a similar countercultural phenomenon explored in the documentary: Soviet Hippies. The contrast between conservative values of the wider society and the hedonistic freedom of the fringes is a tale of change as old as any. Particularly egregious for Soviet authorities was the heavy influence of Western culture on Soviet rock pioneers — from the fashion to the musical style to even some of the lyrics. Leto draws from this as it delves into the frustrations of being famous only in the USSR — as the character Mike elucidates, “Better to be Head Toad in the swamp.” Such hefty dollops of social commentary add layers to the already thought-provoking piece.

What really makes Leto come alive is the music — full-length songs accompany fantasy sequences, essentially creating retconned music videos to anthems by Iggy Pop and Talking Heads. But rather than just an extended homage to this era of rock music, the scenes subvert everyday reactions to such music. The main laughs come out of the absurdity of babushkas on buses singing backup vocals; it is a worthy feat that the serious themes of this plot still give way to genuinely funny moments.

At a recent event in London’s Ciné Lumière, the film collective Kino Klassika showcased Leto and staged a Q&A with one of the film’s stars, Roman Bilyk, who plays Mike. Bilyk offered some interesting insights — for instance, revealing that German-Korean actor Teo Yoo, who played Viktor with such apparent ease, spoke no Russian before agreeing to the part and sometimes had scripts attached to other actors’ backs during filming. Watching the polished final product, one never could have guessed.

The film earns some merit of being subversive; Serebrennikov was under house arrest during much of the creation of the film, suspected to be a politically motivated action by the Russian state. The early deaths of many Soviet rock stars are poignantly touched upon by the film too. Some surviving rock artists from this period have dismissed Leto as deliberately inaccurate; there has been little question that the narrative takes heavy poetic license with the truth about this early period of Tsoi and the Naumenkos’ lives. However, it should be pointed out that the real Natalya worked closely with the director and actors to ensure at least a baseline of accuracy, even bringing Mike’s real lyric books and other props to use on the set.

Serebrennikov choses to insert the ‘sceptic’ character to deal with these critiques, an apparently spectral figure who speaks directly to the audience to emphasise what did not happen in reality — but perhaps should have. His presence in many scenes, steeped in meta-irony, certainly lifts the realism of the film but not to a damaging degree. The more rounded, profound conversations between Viktor and Natalya, for instance, bring it crashing back down to earth.

From a purely technical perspective, the film is both subtle and bombastic, with clever use of shadows and odd perspectives internally battling the more outrageous scenes of action and confrontation. Movement is everywhere, new and dynamic characters come out of every corner, every direction. The costume design is ideal — think scuffed jeans, big boots and denim jackets. The lighting and well-crafted sets give the whole film an airy, dreamy quality which extracts joy out of the conflict, pain and agony of the plot.

Simply put, Leto is a triumph of a film — beautiful in its black and white clarity, original in its musical interlude scenes, poetic in assessing the limitations of creative freedoms under the Soviet system and heartbreaking in its portrayal of a realistic love dilemma between flawed humans. In the beach scene where Viktor first meets Mike and Natalya, the ‘reprobate’ characters joyously drinking, smoking, singing, stripping, running through fire and jumping in the ocean encapsulates the freedom, however fleeting, that our inner child often craves. It is simply wistful and can stir even the bitterest hearts. Far from a brash, hedonistic celebration of rock-star life, Serebrennikov’s creation is full of self-reflection and exists as a touching tribute to the complexity of human relations.

Leto

FEMSPECTIVES 2020 - VAI

Bad Boys - 25th Anniversary