Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Making a movie pro or against anything as "The Student" does it, is not hard. Following the examples of the despised propaganda that biased media provide us, the movie depicts just the right circumstances that prove the needed points. I guess the film is in some way intellectually provoking but it's a 2016 film.Let me elaborate: 1 century ago film-makers and media creators started to put to work the brainwashing power of mass-communication. Today even commercials don't take themselves too seriously; otherwise you don't take the product seriously - we all know ads are just a way to sell something.Serebrennikov and von Mayenburg instead take themselves very seriously as if they are contributing to mankind's progress (for sale) or unveiling some great mystery (while they are just giving another shape to ideas and concerns way older than them). They take themselves too seriously for someone who chose not to become a prime minister, an academic or a prophet. They are supposedly entertainers but they don't seem to care about the boring and lengthy script.Therefore, for the potential audience of the movie (which is very limited and likely made up of people that already agree on most of the points the authors stress), warning! This is mostly an annoying waste of time with very few redeeming moments.While respecting the fact that someone may still learn something or ask himself some new questions as a "response" to the movie, there is nearly no entertainment; it's just a prosaic, uninspired lesson. Watch Agora (2009) instead.

This is a Russian production, so there are the subtitles, but this is a movie worth your time. It's a hard movie to define because it has the elements of teenage angst, religious fanaticism, bullying, mental illness, teacher/student issues, and culture. I can't say I've seen any movie quite like it, but it held my interest throughout because I didn't know exactly where it was going. The characters are well defined and the acting is very good. I agree with the critics that this is a captivating subject, well produced and directed.

"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.

Nowadays Russian cinema is more political than ever. And its political word is not shy, it frankly declares war against either bureaucratic or societal corruption (or both), as we can see in Leviathan, Durak, and this film. But the most dangerous enemy in this war, is the scope of the enemy. If you define the whole corrupt society as something to destroy, who will be your allies in this war? No one, for sure. You're as lonely as Don Quixote in his delusions.Actually, the idea of "the Holy Bible in a human's body" as a character is striking, strengthened by the undeniable references. The viewers are forced to observe how religious fundamentalism can threaten the society, especially when the people around cannot see the big picture, cannot imagine what will come next and feed the beast naively as if donating to the church. But as I mentioned above, despite the power of its criticism this movie too is unfortunately flawed with the problem of being incapable of providing solution, like similar others. The film rightfully asks: "This religious fundamentalism is poisoning us! What is the antidote to it?" But the answer is perfectly oxymoronical: "We need idealist individuals, but hopeless at the same time due to their loneliness..."So, according to me it's clear that these "pessimist-idealist" characters represent the directors themselves. They can foresee what's coming, they want to do something, but when they look around they realize that they don't have anyone to cooperate with. So, disappointed with this loneliness, they get critical of the society much more than the problems the society is experiencing. So, contradictorily, what we as the viewers have in the end is not a motivation for action, but a reflection of the pessimism of the director dictating us to sit and smile cynically at the inevitable self-destruction of the society.