Jude Law's Putin sent from Russia with love

Is a new film portrayal of the autocrat as a James Bond-like strategist merely swallowing Kremlin myths?

- By Natasha Kiseleva

Last year, speaking at the Venice film festival premiere of The Wizard of the Kremlin, based on a book about the rise of Vladimir Putin, actor Jude Law said he “didn’t fear any repercussions” over his portrayal of the Russian president.

Law may be right, but not for the reason he thinks. The film aligns so closely with the mythologised version promoted by the Russian media that, domestically, it reads as a compliment rather than an affront.

The Kremlin and Russia’s pop-culture machine have long collaborated to craft a made-to-measure version of Putin that is far removed from the man himself: a political superhero without age or mistakes, a perfectly calculated strategist, a former spy reframed as a Russian James Bond who always knows more than he reveals.

One recent example is the TV series Chronicles of the Russian Revolution, released in October and directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, a longstanding Kremlin supporter. Its main character is a fictional blue-eyed lieutenant colonel in the secret services, inexplicably chosen by the emperor’s inner circle and presented as the man who “saves” Russia from chaos. Although the character is named Mikhail rather than Vladimir, the implication is clear: the saviour of Russia must be the familiar security officer.