Leto (2018)

Directed by: Kirill Serebrennikov | 126 minutes | biography, drama, music | Actors: Teo Yoo, Irina Starshenbaum, Roman Bilyk, Anton Adasinsky, Liya Akhedzhakova, Yuliya Aug, Filipp Avdeev, Aleksandr Bashirov, S. Berdichevsky, Nikita Efremov

Growing up in the eighties was certainly not easy, it was fun too. Cassette recorders that you had to operate with two fingers to record creaky LPs from older friends, and which you return at the risk of vinyl and bicycle. Parents went through your coat pockets looking for evidence of disobedience. You picked something on a guitar and it sounded bad. It wasn’t all that bad.

Starting a band in the Soviet Union in 1981 was possible, but it certainly wouldn’t have been easier. Not impossible either, shows us ‘Leto’ – an atmospheric film full of strumming and chatter, lots of booze and nicotine. Sometimes ‘Leto’ looks like a festival report on Super 8, sometimes like a Nouvelle Vague production, it certainly is smooth; not least thanks to the charismatic trio of protagonists.

Girls circle around band members, often more than that and sometimes they have two candidates. As old as the road to Rome, and that women can make Cologne and Aachen thunder in one day, the viewer knows, especially if he has spotted Natasha (Irina Starshenbaum). This young woman doesn’t mind at all that husband Mayk (Roma Zver) sings to women as “piece of shit” while she stands by. The viewer knows why: she can get another one in no time.

Kirill Serebrennikov makes little effort to set up a romantic story. The youthful energy of this film does the job. Mayk draws Bowie at a desk full of records, while Natasha takes care of the baby. Life has its course, the future seems limitless. And there we go again with a song, sometimes even a full city bus that spontaneously starts singing ‘The Passenger’ by Iggy Pop.

Where is the Cold War? Little of that, save for an exemplary clumsy KGB intervention; failed hard rock haircuts and a lot of arguing and smoking, and songs about cheating – a self-fulfilling prophecy in the rocker life. The model for ‘Leto’ is Viktor Tsoy’s band Kino. An Asian tinted Viktor (Teo Yoo) plays a major role as a shadow lover.

Of course Natasha falls in love, and that plays out to Mayk as a puppy crush. The foul-mouthed rocker melts when he hears this. The viewer thinks he knows, but Serebrennikov (‘The Student’) does not want to interpret at all, not even to romanticize – even though his film is full of debauched, Russian pathos. Life is one big failed escape attempt; meanwhile we live.