After captivating over 600,000 readers upon its release in 2022 and being adapted into a film starring Jude Law, Giuliano da Empoli's novel finds new life in graphic novel form. The Kremlin Magician (Casterman, 144 pages, €24) is illustrated by Luc Jacamon, co-author with Matz of the series The Killer, adapted for the screen by David Fincher. This graphic version is not a literal transposition but a complete reimagining, where the artist adds his own touch while remaining faithful to the spirit of the original text.
From Siberia in 1965 to the rise of Putin: a fascinating story about power
The graphic novel opens on a desolate landscape of the Taimyr Peninsula in March 1965, where young Vadia goes hunting with his civil servant father and his grandfather, a former aristocrat. This same Vadia will become Vadim Baranov, a fictional character inspired by Vladimir Putin's real-life advisor, Vladislav Surkov. The story follows him from the fall of the USSR—when Russians "had grown up in a homeland and found themselves in a supermarket"—to his rise to power as a Kremlin power behind the throne, by way of a detour through television and reality TV. We see him watching, in an impersonal office, a secret service official named Vladimir Putin agree to become Russia's next president. Baranov dreams of himself as a modern-day Rasputin, a kingmaker—before realizing that Putin "knows exactly what he wants and how he intends to impose his power," leaving his advisor "always almost a war behind." The historical figures — Putin captured in his characteristic immobility, Limonov, Prigozhin — are described by columnist Thierry Bellefroid on Musiq3 as “strikingly true to life”.
A Cinemascope aesthetic, somewhere between mauve, orange, and snowy forests.
Graphically, Jacamon opts for a minimalist approach: only four to six panels per page, in a palette dominated by mauve and orange tones that lend the whole a distinctive atmosphere. The large panels create a cinematic effect that captivates the reader, each one conveying "a wealth of information" despite its apparent simplicity. The forest sequences under the snow and the hunting scenes, where the wolf and the bear reappear as recurring symbols, are among the most striking in the book. This adaptation appeals to both readers of the novel and those who may have been put off by its "scholarly" nature.
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