Leto means Summer in Russian. I picked this detail up from the subtitles. In the first twenty minutes of the film, there’s an exquisitely filmed beach sequence, when the youthful musician Victor is introduced to Maik, the world-weary Soviet rock star. The sequence is filmed with a diffuse, black and white grain which feels both nostalgic and like it could be happening tomorrow. The work of the DOP, Vladislav Opelyants, throughout the film is electric, achieving that rare quality, when you’re happy to watch the screen for the images alone. During the beach sequence, Maik sings a song called Leto; a lazy, going-nowhere verse which drips with an insouciant cool. As though these people knew, back then in Leningrad, that you could listen to Lou Reed singing Walk on the Wild Side, but nothing could match the outlandish dream of being a rock and roll rebel in the USSR.
There’s something very beautiful about the idea of Soviet rebellion (which reminded me of Limonov who I read thirty years ago). The film is set in the Leningrad punk and post-punk scene. Samizdat copies of Reed, Bowie, T-Rex, the Velvets, even Echo and the Bunnymen, are the currency of independent thought. Rock music is rigidly controlled by the authorities, who have to give their approval to lyrics and control the gigs. In this context, subversion is survival, smuggling the counter-culture in though sly lyrics and a deadpan gaze which hides the beating pulse. The songs are steeped in a Baudelaireian celebration of rock and roll, the home of the lazy, the degenerate, the drunkard. In the latter days of the Soviet empire, they get away with it, and Victor will go on to front Kino, one of the most successful Russian bands ever.
Indeed, if you’re Russian, this movie will have other resonances, reminiscent of Corbijn’s Control. Both Victor and Maik were stars who died young. Leto is loosely based around Maiik’s wife, Natasha’s attraction to Victor, making for a Jules et Jim narrative. Serebrennikov’s film has a punky vitality which extends to several reworkings of classic favourites. Some of these interventions, adorned with graphic design touches, are more effective than others. A rumbustious fantasy sequence set to the Heads’ Psychokiller comes brilliantly out of the blue, taking the viewer by surprise. But more than these western songs, it’s the subtitled Russian tunes that quicken the pulse. The poetic roots of rock and roll reverberate. Pushkin was a rock star. So was John Clare. César Vallejo. All the young dudes carry the news.
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