Critic Rating
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Director
Darezhan Omirbayev
Cast
Nurlan Baitasov,
Maya Serikbayeva,
Edige Bolysbayev,
Daniyar Bazarkulov,
Baygaly Bekarys,
Kanat Berentaev
Genre
Drama
Student is a loose adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment set in Kazakhstan. It follows a nameless, solitary student that commits a crime of senseless violence in an attempt to change his directionless life. But instead of fulfillment, he finds himself wracked with guilt and depression.
The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold
It’s the no-nonsense filmmaking, seamlessly integrating even dreams and visions, that keeps us fixed on the bold line of the student’s trajectory, all the way through to a transcendent ending.
Village Voice
Psychological violence is constantly present and reflected in the film's physical violence, which is typically suggested rather than seen.
Variety by Leslie Felperin
There’s much to admire in the film’s elegantly classical tempo and the way Omirbayev achieves so much with so little.
Time Out by David Fear
A sense of existential dread that would make the Russkie novelist beam is channeled beautifully, but for a filmmaker lauded for his minimalist aesthetic, Omirbayev sure loves broad-stroke symbolism and sloganeering.
Slant Magazine
Kazakh cinema's stalwart auteur Darzhan Omirbaev adapts Crime and Punishment to modern-day Almaty, but with little to say beyond the obvious.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
Omirbaev fails to invest either the murder plot or its political subtext with much suspense or conviction.
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