''Leto'' (russian: Лето, Leto, 'Summer') is a 2018 Russian
musical film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks ...
directed by
Kirill Serebrennikov
Kirill Semyonovich Serebrennikov (russian: Кирилл Семёнович Серебренников; born 7 September 1969) is a Russian stage and film director and theatre designer. Since 2012, he has been the artistic director of the Gogol ...
that depicts the Leningrad underground rock scene of the early 1980s. The film draws loosely from the lives of the Soviet rock musicians
Viktor Tsoi
Viktor Robertovich Tsoi (russian: Виктор Робертович Цой; ; 21 June 1962 – 15 August 1990) was a Soviet singer and songwriter who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and musically influential bands in the history of ...
and
Mike Naumenko
Mikhail Vasilyevich Naumenko, better known as Mike Naumenko (russian: link=no, Майк Науменко, 18 April 1955 – 27 August 1991)[Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...](_blank)
at the
2018 Cannes Film Festival
The 71st annual Cannes Film Festival was held from 8 to 19 May 2018. Australian actress Cate Blanchett acted as President of the Jury. The Japanese film ''Shoplifters'', directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, won the Palme d'Or.
Asghar Farhadi's psycho ...
, where it won the
Cannes Soundtrack Award.
''Leto'' also won the
Best Production Designer at the
2018 European Film Awards.
Plot
The film is set in the summer of the early 1980s in Leningrad. The main storyline of the film tells the story of the relationship between the 19-year-old Viktor Tsoi (Teo Yoo), 26-year-old Mike Naumenko (Roman Bilyk), and Naumenko's girlfriend Natalia (Irina Starshenbaum), as well as the formation of the
Leningrad Rock Club
The Leningrad Rock Club (russian: Ленинградский рок-клуб) was a historic music venue of the 1980s in Leningrad, situated on Rubinstein Street in the city centre. Opened in 1981 and overseen by the KGB, it became the first leg ...
and the recording of
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
's first album, ''
45''.
The film's setting, the Leningrad Rock Club, was one of the few state-permitted public performance spaces for rock musicians in its time. The Club is generally a theatrical venue for boundary-pushing music, where audiences are instructed to sit politely and listen rather than mosh. However, interjections by narrator Skeptic (Alexander Kuznetsov) occasionally recast the club as extravagant, hedonistic, reckless, and dangerous. The musicians live frugally; their indulgences are creative rather than material.
Much of the narrative focuses on Mike, the frontman of one of the Club's more popular, old-guard bands, and his girlfriend Natacha, whose close, initially monogamous relationship stands in contrast to the expected behavior of rockstars. Also significant to the plot is Viktor, a quiet, slightly otherworldly young man with a knack for melody and a beguilingly peculiar turn of lyrical phrase. Natacha is the first to notice a kind of melancholic magic about Viktor, as the film gradually reorients itself around his budding stardom rather than Mike's less obviously ascending career. However, the film maintains a more general look at the musicians in the club, including the various musicians who come in and out of the lives of the protagonists.
The film's musical numbers alternate between diegetic stage performances and sudden flights of music-video fancy. In one such performance, an altercation between musicians and more conservative citizens on a packed train escalates into a demented, carriage-traversing singalong of Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," the hitherto realist imagery disrupted with early-MTV-style cartoon flourishes. There are a few sequences in which Mike and the other Leningrad rockers seize their moment, using their music to defy the bureaucrats and wow audiences. However, nearly of these scenes all followed by a caveat to the effect of "this didn’t really happen."
Cast
*
Teo Yoo
Kim Chi Hun (born April 11, 1981), known professionally as Teo Yoo is a South Korean actor. He is known for his role as Viktor Tsoi in the musical film ''Leto''.
Life
Teo Yoo was born as Kim Tschi Hun in Cologne, Germany. His father was a m ...
as
Viktor Tsoi
Viktor Robertovich Tsoi (russian: Виктор Робертович Цой; ; 21 June 1962 – 15 August 1990) was a Soviet singer and songwriter who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and musically influential bands in the history of ...
(
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
singer)
*
Roman Bilyk (
Zveri
Zveri (''Beasts''; russian: Звери) is a Russian rock band.
Biography
Zveri was formed in mid 2002 by Roman Bilyk, the lead singer of the band, better known as Roma Zver'.
The band was named after his nickname. He was soon joined by Maks ...
vocalist) as
Mike Naumenko
Mikhail Vasilyevich Naumenko, better known as Mike Naumenko (russian: link=no, Майк Науменко, 18 April 1955 – 27 August 1991)[Irina Starshenbaum
Irina Vladimirovna Starshenbaum (russian: Ирина Владимировна Старшенба́ум; born 30 March 1992) is a Russian stage, film and voice actress. For her role in ''T-34'', she won the TEFI award for Best Actress and was a no ...](_blank)
as Natasha Naumenko
*
Filipp Avdeyev
Filipp Vadimovich Avdeyev (russian: Фили́пп Вади́мович Авде́ев; born November 10, 1991) is a Russian actor and director. A graduate of the Moscow Art Theatre School. Since 2012 he has been an actor at the Gogol Center Thea ...
as Lyosha (prot. Alexei Rybin, first guitarist of
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
)
*
Evgeniy Serzin as Oleg (prot. Oleg Valinskiy, first drummer of
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
)
*
Alexander Gorchilin
Alexander Pavlovich Gorchilin (russian: Алекса́ндр Па́влович Горчи́лин; born March 3, 1992) is a Russian film and stage actor, voice actor and film director.
Gained fame after playing roles in the TV series '' Daddy's ...
as Punk (prot. Andrey «Svin» Panov, frontman of
Avtomaticheskie udovletvoriteli
Avtomaticheskie udovletvoriteli (russian: Автоматические удовлетворители, lit=The Automatic Satisfiers, abbreviated AU) was a Soviet, and later Russian, punk band, formed in Leningrad in 1979. It is considered the fi ...
)
*
Yuliya Aug
Yuliya Arturovna Aug (russian: Юлия Артуровна Ауг; born 8 June 1970) is a Soviet and Russian actress. Her film credits include '' The Student'', as Tatyana Ivanova, head of
Leningrad Rock Club
The Leningrad Rock Club (russian: Ленинградский рок-клуб) was a historic music venue of the 1980s in Leningrad, situated on Rubinstein Street in the city centre. Opened in 1981 and overseen by the KGB, it became the first leg ...
*
Nikita Yefremov
Nikita Mikhailovich Yefremov (russian: Никита Михайлович Ефремов; born 30 May 1988) is a Russian theatre actor, voice acting and dubbing actor, known for his roles in television series '' Londongrad'' (2015), '' The Thaw'' ...
as Bob (prot.
Boris Grebenshchikov
Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov (russian: link=no, Борис Борисович Гребенщиков; born ) is a prominent member of the generation which is widely considered to be the "founding fathers" of Russian rock music. He is the fou ...
)
*
Georgy Kudrenko Georgy may refer to:
*Georgy (given name)
*Diminituve for Georgina
*Georgy, the protagonist in '' Georgy Girl'' novel, film, and song
* ''Georgy'' (musical), a musical from the novel ''Georgy Girl''
See also
*Georgi (disambiguation)
*Georgiy Georgy ...
as Zhora
*
Nikita Yelenev as Virus
*
Alexandra Revenko as Mariana's friend I
*
Liya Akhedzhakova
Liya Medzhidovna Akhedzhakova (russian: link=no, Лия Меджидовна Ахеджакова; born 9 July 1938) is a Soviet and Russian film, stage and voice actress who received the title of People's Artist of Russia in 1994. She received two ...
as apartment owner
*
Anton Adasinsky as apartment owner
*
Yelena Koreneva
Yelena Alekseyevna Koreneva (russian: Еле́на Алексе́евна Ко́ренeва; born October 3, 1953, Moscow) is a Soviet and Russian stage and film actress, writer, film director and screenwriter.
Yelena Koreneva starred in more th ...
as woman in red
*
Aleksandr Bashirov
Alexander Nikolaevich Bashirov (russian: Александр Николаевич Баширов; born 24 September 1955, in Sogom) is a Russian film and theater actor, director and screenwriter. He performed in more than sixty films since 1986.
...
as angry man on train
*
Seva Novgorodsev
Seva Novgorodsev MBE (Russian: Се́ва Новгоро́дцев, which is a pseudonym, his real name being Vsevolod Borisovich Levenstein (Всеволод Борисович Левенштейн); born 9 July 1940) is a former radio present ...
as antiquarian
*
Vasily Mikhailov
Vasili, Vasily, Vasilii or Vasiliy ( Russian: Василий) is a Russian masculine given name of Greek origin and corresponds to '' Basil''. It may refer to:
* Vasili I of Moscow Grand Prince from 1389–1425
*Vasili II of Moscow Grand Prince ...
as Isha
*
Aleksandr Kuznetsov as skeptic
*
Andrey Khodorchenkov as
Artemy Troitsky
Production
Filming began in July 2017 in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
.
At the end of August 2017, Serebrennikov was arrested, deported to Moscow on charges of fraud, and placed under house arrest. Nevertheless, by February 2018 he managed to finish the film without violating the prohibitions imposed by the court, as he completed his work using a computer not connected to the Internet. A few unfinished scenes were finished using his notes and based on previous rehearsals.
Initial stills from the film were shown in the edition of 2 February 2018 of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
''.
Music
The film features the music of
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
and other Soviet rock bands.
The soundtrack also includes covers of
The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer",
Iggy Pop's "Passenger",
Lou Reed's "Perfect Day", and
David Bowie's "All the Young Dudes" by contemporary Russian artists, such as
Glintshake and
Shortparis
Shortparis is a Russian pop group formed in Saint Petersburg in 2012.
History
Nikolai Komyagin, Alexander Ionin, and Pavel Lesnikov met in their hometown, Novokuznetsk, and formed Shortparis in 2012 upon moving to Saint Petersburg. They were lat ...
. ''Leto'' won the
Cannes Soundtrack Award.
Reception
Critical response
Allocine's review aggregator gave the film a score of 4.4 out of 5, with numerous outlets placing the film among the world's top films of 2018.
On the English-language review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of , based on reviews with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "A love story set against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in Russian culture, ''Leto'' captures people -- and a generation -- in thrilling flux."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
gives the film a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Ben Sachs, the top critic from the ''
Chicago Reader
The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...
'', gave a positive review of the film: "If you can disregard the derivativeness, this has some decent music and charismatic performances, and it provides some insights into the Western aspirations of Soviet youth culture." By contrast,
Ty Burr
Ty Burr (born August 17, 1957) is an American film critic, columnist, and author who currently writes a film and popular culture newsletter "Ty Burr's Watchlist" on Substack. Burr previously served as film critic at ''The Boston Globe'' for two ...
from ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' stated, "Maybe you had to be there, but it's a movie's job to take us, and this one gets only partway."
Published by the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis states, “Kirill Serebrennikov’s gentle mood piece brings an underground music scene to vivid life.”
Music community
On 15 February 2018, the film was criticized by musician
Boris Grebenshchikov
Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov (russian: link=no, Борис Борисович Гребенщиков; born ) is a prominent member of the generation which is widely considered to be the "founding fathers" of Russian rock music. He is the fou ...
, who felt that the script of the film was "a lie from beginning to end."
Alexei Rybin, one of the founders of
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
, criticized the script and forbade the use of his image in the film. The film was sharply criticized by the music producer
Andrei Tropillo
Andrei Vladimirovich Tropillo (russian: links=no, Андрей Владимирович Тропилло; 21 March 1951, Leningrad) is a Soviet and Russian record producer, music publisher, sound engineer, founder of the label AnTrop (""), and ro ...
, who described the director Serebrennikov as "a man alien to rock culture and who knows nothing about it". Music critic
Artemy Troitsky agreed that the script "causes great doubts", but urged people to wait for the finished film.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leto
2018 films
2018 drama films
2018 biographical drama films
Films directed by Kirill Serebrennikov
2010s Russian-language films
Russian rock music films
Russian biographical drama films
Biographical films about singers
Films set in 1981
Films set in Saint Petersburg
Films set in the Soviet Union
Films shot in Saint Petersburg
Cultural depictions of rock musicians
Cultural depictions of Russian men