A strident commentary on contemporary Russian society, Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Student turns a familiar coming-of-age scenario into a morally wrought conflict. Brooding teenager Veniamin Yuzhin (Pyotr Skvortsov) uses Christianity as a cudgel in his obsessive crusade against society: the education system, relaxed sexual attitudes and anything else he deems broken and ungodly. At school, he rails against his atheist biology teacher, Elena (Viktoriya Isakova), chasing her around the class in a gorilla costume and mocking evolution. During a sexual education lesson, he strips nude in protest of condom use and quotes Old Testament verses about childbirth and transgressive women. The conservative headmistress publicly condemns but privately supports his disruptive behavior, which includes protests and demonstrations against homosexuals and the bikini-clad girls in his swim class.
There’s a not-so-sly attack on Russian conservatism and Vladimir Putin’s regressive attitude toward LGBTQ people and liberal politics at play here, but it’s not as if The Student lacks in subtly. Despite Skvortsov’s loud and fiery performance, the film has a slow burn, and Serebrennikov isn’t quick to show his hand as to where he actually stands on these issues. The beginning stretches mostly feel like a character study, as the director focuses on Veniamin’s unique psychology and obsessive fixation on the Bible and Christianity. The film opens up when we begin to see the character within the broader context of not just European conservatism but prevailing attitudes across the world. As the tension increases, so do discussions surrounding free speech, religious freedom and sexual liberation, giving The Student a startling resonance in this post-truth world.
If you’re a bit fuzzy on your Bible scripture, The Student is sure to jar your memory. Serebrennikov includes live annotations of the many passages quoted in the film, usually inscribed on the chalkboards of a classroom or on the walls of the gym, lending to the feeling of overkill within the religion-heavy Russian school system. Here, Serebrennikov locates the underlying contradiction of state-sanctioned religious education: the teachers are forced to abide by a strict Christian syllabus, but they have to discipline the student when he follows each lesson—however melodramatically—to its most logical endpoint. As the most centered and rational figure at Veniamin’s school, Elena is open to religion but committed to science and progress, and she immediately becomes his primary opposition, as well as a target for her fellow teachers and administrators. Consequently, the educational process is undone by the very thing meant to preserve it, and reversing course is nothing less than a complete shift in societal attitude and government policy. This sense of futility is the film’s saddest element and its most humanizing touch.
Despite the serious premise and some intense drama, The Student has a pitch-black satirical streak. Serebrennikov is a smart and flavorful writer, and he openly invites humor into the film’s most potent and jarring sequences, like when Veniamin attempts to heal his friend’s lifelong physical deformity using the power of prayer, which mostly amounts to lots and lots of yelling and screaming to no avail. The director notes the absurdity of it all, but when he returns to the encounter later in the film, the stakes have risen considerably, infusing the moment with sadness and longing. In retooling certain characterizations as the story unfolds, Serebrennikov invites us to sympathize with Veniamin while still finding his outbursts tiresome and his beliefs shortsighted. Such is the process of coming of age, to be sure. The director also uses a lot of handheld camerawork to visualize the character’s feverish mindset, and the use of some compelling overhead shots—not to mention an abundance of warm, glorious natural sunlight that seems to seep through every window—either signifies the presence of God or Veniamin’s own megalomaniac view of himself.
There’s plenty more style where that came from, and unfortunately it comes at the film’s expense. Serebrennikov is a confident and capable filmmaker, but his technique can be tiresome. The film’s visual language, like the character’s incessant rambling, is scattershot and often incoherent. To better represent these lengthy tirades, which tend to encompass anti-Semitic and anti-global sentiments in addition to the moral grandstanding and combative rhetoric, the director utilizes a series of unbroken takes that track the character as he moves about the space. One or two sequences are inspired, and the film’s hectic final moments prove thrilling in both style and content, but Serebrennikov relies on a formula whose heavy-handedness is exasperated by Veniamin’s relentless nature. In other words, The Student isn’t the most pleasurable viewing experience, but then maybe that’s the point. After all, the Bible teaches us to rejoice in suffering.
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