The film is based on a novel titled Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère about the life story of Eduard Limonov, a controversial character who lived out his life as a militant, a political agitator, underground revolutionary, a poet and a writer. The film follows him through Russia, America and Europe as he becomes the main promoter of his own imagined greatness.

This is Serebrennikov’s first English language film and he has cast English actor Ben Whishaw in the lead, an unusual and intriguing choice for the Russian punk and neo-fascist Limonov. Serebrennikov shares screenwriter credits for the film with Pawel Pawlikowski and Ben Hopkins. 

Eduard Limonov was born Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko in 1943 and his adoption of a nom de guerre is typical of his life long creation of his own legend. Eduard Limonov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1974, but returned to Russia in 1991 to live through the turbulent 1990s that transformed the country after the breakup of the Soviet Union. While in Russia he founded the National Bolshevik Party. He died in Moscow in 2020 at the age of 77. He left behind two children Bogdan Limonov and Alexandra Limonova.

While Serebrennikov established his Russian dissident credentials during his three years under house arrest in Moscow before eventually emigrating to France his hero Limonov spoke in favour of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and was on the side of the rebels in the Donbas and Donetsk regions. This makes Limonov a perplexing choice for Serebrennikov. Limonov spent time in a mental hospital and was not in any way a dissident of the stature of Joseph Brodsky or Alexsander Solzhenitsyn. Limonov’s political position will no doubt provoke the ire of many in the West.

Apparently the Polish director and scriptwriter Pawel Pawlikowski was tipped to direct the film but he found the character of Limonov so unattractive that he dropped the project. Limonov is not well known outside his native Russia and the film is unlikely to be distributed there with Serebrennikov a persona non grata there and Limonov not exactly a Russian hero either despite his support for the annexation of the Crimea.

Serebrennikov is known for his perplexing choices of subject matter for his films and his uncompromising some might say excentric style with hand-held camera and a nostalgia for the Soviet era that comes through in his recent films like Leto and Petrov’s Flu. Limonov is not a sympathetic character for the Western audience but it’s possibly his nostalgia for the former Soviet Union that appeals to Serebrennikov.

Credits:
Limonov – The Ballad (Italy/France/Spain)
Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov
Cast: Ben Whishaw, Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Masha Mashkova, Tomas Arana, Sandrine Bonnaire, Corrado Invernizzi, Odin Lund Biron, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Ivan Ivashkin, Vladislav Tsenev, Alexander Prince Osei