“In general,” notes The Narrator ( Jeffrey Wright ) in Olivier Assayas ’s engrossing political drama, “things in Russia go pretty well. But when they go bad, they go really bad.” Though it is set almost entirely within the realpolitik of early 21 st century Moscow, The Wizard of the Kremlin offers a warning to the West about how that state of affairs came to be. Beginning in 2019 and flashing back and forth, it tells a story that harks back to the ascension of Adolf Hitler, as facilitated by German chancellor Franz von Paper in 1932, but also anticipates what’s happening now in the States, as Donald Trump’s administration sets about making Project 25, once written off as an authoritarian pipe dream, a reality.

Fascism is an easy word to bandy about, and The Wizard of the Krem

See Full Page