Thanks to the Instagram account of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s brutal stooge, we have come to realize the arch genius of Depardieu’s ‘defection’. It is actually an epic farce through which the actor unmasks the absurdity of our times: the opening cris du coeur of a tax cheat, his new address on Democracy Street in the middle of Russia’s gulag country, Oscar-night with the de-facto dictator of Chechnya. Method acting at its finest. Bravo, Gerard, BRAVO!

