Review of Leto

"Leto" or "Summer" is a pretty new Russian movie from 2018 and the most recent filmmaking effort by director Kirill Serebrennikov who is also credited as one of several writers and he is among the country's most influential filmmakers these days. Now this is at over 2 hours a fairly long movie and with some very brief exceptions it is entirely in black-and-white focussing on rock music in the Soviet Union several decades ago with major focus on how it influenced strongly by American artists everybody knows of today like Bowie, Iggy Pop and many others. The first half includes more about the political background. There are scenes when during a concert female fans are prohibited from showing signs thatg they love the singers and there are other scenes in which too free-spirited artists are discriminated against in a train because of their liberal tendencies that are not in conformity with the system, also in a violent manner. The second half switches more into personal territory then as the focus moves on to the relationship between two central characters and a love triangle that arises from it when we have German-born actor Teo Yoo's character at the center of it all, also music-wise and he plays Wiktor Zoi and maybesome will know him as the singer from the Soviet band Kino. I must admit I did not, so this film took me and probably many other audience members to a territory that was very new to them, namely the music scene in the Soviet Union back in the day. Sadly I must say the way it was presented here, even if the creativity is impossible to deny, it did not really attract my attention and there were several scenes that made zero impact for me. It's not really the problem that very little happens in these two hours, but that the film does not make enough of a difference in other fields either and it really should have. The music scenes were solid, well the American in my opinion because it directed my attention to several songs I have come across already and liked, but forgotten about over the years. Usually they handled it that minor supporting characters like in the public transportation scene sing in English while the main characters perform in Russian. The Russian songs did virtually nothing for me. So yeah, there is definitely some personal preference in here, maybe also some personal bias, but this film did not make the impact I wanted it to make for me. I still liked the scenes when they included all kinds of animated special effects like during the Lou Reed song Perfect Day the red color or also the quick lightning you on some occasions or the letters written on the screen on several occasions too. But this alone is not enough sadly. And Irina Starshenbaum's stunning looks can also only make up for so much of it. That's why as a whole I give this film a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out. It is not a work on the level where it will get you interested in the subject, only one where you will like the film if you've been interested before already. So if you like Kino and care about their country back then when they were famous, then feel free to check it out. Otherwise skip the watch and honestly, you won't be missing much.