The Stu­dent

Going through puber­ty is a rough time for any ado­les­cent. For Veni­amin (Pyotr Skvortsov), the star of Kir­ill Serebrennikov’s The Stu­dent, teenage angst man­i­fests itself as a reli­gious tirade. His vio­lent ded­i­ca­tion to Chris­tian­i­ty is treat­ed as some­thing new – a reflec­tion of Vladimir Putin’s 2013 enforce­ment of reli­gious teach­ings in schools.

If you’re feel­ing out of touch with scrip­ture, then this film will replen­ish any lost knowl­edge. It includes live anno­ta­tions of Bible pas­sages which appear every time our unlik­able lead­ing lad makes a quo­ta­tion. The text is inte­grat­ed into the scene, whether it’s inscribed on a chalk­board or the walls of a gym­na­si­um. There’s a big con­tra­dic­tion with­in the Russ­ian school sys­tem that Serebrennikov’s film explores.

Teach­ers blind­ly accept a strict reli­gious syl­labus, yet they dis­ci­pline the boy for fol­low­ing them in the obses­sive man­ner he does. The most cen­tred char­ac­ter is his Biol­o­gy teacher (Vik­toriya Isako­va) who is sen­si­tive to reli­gion and open to sci­en­tif­ic teach­ings despite adver­si­ty from con­ser­v­a­tive col­leagues and the explo­sive Veniamin.

It soon becomes clear that Veniamin’s insis­tent views extend to homo­pho­bia and anti-semi­tism. Yet his out­bursts and the ill treat­ment he receives from his fam­i­ly do become weary­ing. Some erup­tions are actu­al­ly rather fun­ny, like when he strips naked in protest at hav­ing to place a con­dom on a car­rot, or his act­ing like a 2001 pri­mate to stand up against evolution.

The only glimpse of human empa­thy we see is his brief roman­tic involve­ment with Lidiya (Alek­san­dra Revenko) who he soon ditch­es in favour of the cross he holds over his shoul­der like a bindle. The Stu­dent is stim­u­lat­ing when try­ing to deci­pher the ratio­nale of the trou­bled high school boy who has loom­ing ariel shots hov­er­ing over him as if being watched by God. A haunt­ing end­ing that lands a suck­er punch from out of nowhere makes the nar­ra­tive seem very real and rounds o the film in a heart­break­ing manner.