The Student (2017)

best movie i've ever seen.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The plot revolves around religious interpretation validity, but just out the shell.However, religion issues are a mere devise to show the detrimental progress of the mind of a boy traumatized for the absence of a father. That father longing, becomes the Father, and the Son religious metaphor that is at the same time took literally by the main character. The boy that is treated as a devote religious man, is never taken seriously as the boy that needs urgently a shrink to disclose the only reason for being ill minded. The pain of Growing without a father and the mother as the remaining culprit, no matter how she cares. The Bible as a textbook. And the Bible as the metaphor of the lacking lessons that a father could had given to his son. Divorce is the apple eaten by the new Adams and Eves of the 21th century.

like many Russian contemporary films, it seems be portrait of near reality from East. in fact, it is a puzzle of questions. about school and about teenager crisis, about the use of religion and the answer of Church, about friendship and fear and teachers, about situation of a student as personal struggle for a woman looking defining his life direction. it could be perceived as attack against Chistianity, as satire or as precise reflection of the state of school. but, more important, it has two virtues - the performances - especially the performance of the lead actor and the status of support for reflection about near every day reality. because it gives nothing new. well known facts, the crisis of a teenager, empty head teachers, a revolutionary Biology teacher, her boy friend, a young student looking for love. each as part of a lucid and admirable interrogation. so, an admirable work.

"The Student" – "(M)uchenik" directed by Kirill Serebrennikov is an attempt to reconsider religious fanaticism in the modern world. The picture is based on the play "Martyr" by German author Marius von Mayenburg and it was adapted to the reality of modern Russia.In a way the problems touched upon in the film are universal and not connected to one particular religion. An interesting aspect of the film is the constant quoting of the Bible which shows that any religion can become an instrument of aggression. The picture is a sharp and humorous satire. The teachers in the film are very well depicted, they whose heads are full of self contradictory ideas combining Stalinism, Putinism, Communism, Liberalism and religion. The school administration cannot confront a religious fanatic because they themselves do not have any ideas or principles.When the biology teacher tries to confront Veniamin, she also looks into the Bible, which she interprets in a vulgar and primitive way. The relations between Veniamin and Grigori are interesting; he becomes very close to Veniamin but we see later that Grigori is gay which is the real reason why he becomes his disciple.The film is shot in a minimalistic way in this low-budget production, but the actors play well and the dialogues are very funny. The ideas of the picture are important, the film has an open end just as our society has an uncertain future with growing extremism and radicalism.

There are two kinds of movies. Those where the director tells a story and all you need to do just sit and watch. Batman. La La Land. And so on. And there are adult movies where the audience is expected to do some work filling in the gaps. But even here, there has to be same places clearly indicated for the audience to color in, so to speak. This film is a long overblown self regarding pile of nonsense. Nothing is explained. Nowhere do we learn why the protagonist is a religious nut case, nor why the school he attends and disrupts daily with his gospel quoting madness is allowed to do so unpunished. He comes dressed as an ape when the lesson is about Darwin, whose theory of evolution offends his biblical beliefs. He then takes all his clothes off as a protest in a lesson where a carrot used as an erect penis covered with a condom to illustrate safe sex. Again, there is not a word of admonition. I simply do not believe any Russian school would tolerate such behavior - and I know a fair bit about Russian life. He would be sent to a nut hutch as fast as you can say Putin is Boss. The director, a bearded man with glasses, and he has an agenda. This is that the church is creeping back and will again rot the thinking of the forward looking masses. Well, that is what I got from coloring this miserable movie without a single line to guide me. There is a touching performance from Tiny Tim - not really. A sad lonely potentially gay lad with a short left leg who gets killed by the nutter. Laughable.