(M)UCHENIK (The
Student) D-
Russia (119 mi)
2016 d: Kirill Serebrennikov
Without a doubt the
worst film of the year, bordering on hysteria, as it’s poorly constructed,
increasingly pretentious, becoming little more than an overblown mouthpiece for
an ill-conceived authoritarian state, a metaphor for Putin’s Russia, as it
fails to deal with any of the significant issues raised, religious freedom, a
separation of church and state, as they’ve merged and become one conglomerate,
including an alarming rise of homophobia and anti-Semitism, instead casting
blame on whoever questions the authority’s handling of affairs. Without an ounce of subtlety, this film rams
the Biblical scriptures, as exemplified by the teenage rebellion of a religious
zealot still in high school, through the administrative authorities of the
Russian state who have adapted religious orthodoxy into their political
platform, so are too weakly divided to stop him, none of which prevent this
student from denouncing his teachers and fellow students, taking over
classrooms at will, dominating the discussions, and literally bullying his way
through school by extended rants of quoting Biblical verse at the top of his
lungs, with onscreen titles acting as footnotes, reflecting the Biblical
origins of each text. Adapted from the
German play Martyr by Marius von
Mayenburg, the whole thing has the feeling of sermonizing and being preached at
throughout, though the school’s tepid, near comical reaction reflects a satiric
condemnation of the social conservatism that defines Putin’s rule, such as the
passage of anti-gay laws. Nonetheless,
while it resembles Lynne Ramsay’s We
Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) in the way a single child shows such utter
contempt for his simple-headed mother and the world around him, finding
vengeance in the wrath of God, hoping to force them all into the flames of
hell, while he and only he is the mouthpiece for the Lord. What makes little sense is his total
transformation to a religious ideologue seemingly overnight, where the school
and teachers have little clue how to deal with this volcanic force of Biblical
hormones out of control, though anyone else that disrupted classrooms would be
singled out and thoroughly dealt with by authorities. But not this kid, who is treated with kid
gloves, as if he actually is the coming Messiah.
With parallels to
Dietrich Brüggemann’s German film Stations
of the Cross (Kreuzweg) (2014), another film about religious
fundamentalism, it’s clear no matter what political system, liberal German or
authoritarian Russian, authorities are ill-prepared to deal with overly
exaggerated cases of fundamentalism, where the adherence to a single set of
extremist religious beliefs, and an intolerance for anything else, overwhelms
the existing societal structure, as it defies the aims of any modernized
educational system, which is to provide as broad-based an education as
possible. Most schools would not
tolerate any student taking over classrooms, period. The only solution is to remove them as a
disruptive force unless they can learn to behave themselves, and if not, they
are free to seek alternative educational measures. In free democratic societies, religious
fundamentalists exist in small like-minded sects and aren’t integrated into
mainstream society, as they would be thoroughly denounced by a majority of
citizens who would not allow the manipulation of religious beliefs being forced
upon them, which is why the Amish don’t run the public school systems of
Pennsylvania, and al-Qaeda or Isis theocracy are not taught in schools across
Europe. But in an authoritarian state
that may already be infused with religious doctrine, the idea that they would
be stifled and handcuffed to do anything about it is simply ludicrous. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet
that is the premise of this film. While
dramatic enunciations might work on stage, the exaggerations onscreen clearly
undermine the entire film, as audiences don’t tend to like being shouted at for
two hours, unless the literary dialogue is brilliantly original, as is the case
in Mike Nichols’ Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
But there’s nothing original about this, as it plods on in purely
amateurish fashion, especially the use of blaring heavy metal music, Laibach - God Is God -
YouTube (3:50), which punctuates the film like a hammer to the head, making
little connection to audiences.
The film pretends to
be a satirical look at the dysfunction of Putin’s Russia, but most of this is
so laughably bad that it’s awful, as its own narrow scope refuses common sense
solutions, yet the system’s paranoid reaction is as telling as the bizarre
behavior of the student himself, mirroring the major institutions in Russia
that have become increasingly dominated by small-minded reactionaries and
bigoted political followers, where in 2013 Putin made faith-based culture
mandatory teaching in secondary schools.
The heavy-handed style, however, is its own undoing, as it’s hard to
take anything seriously simply by the predictable and overly simplistic way
it’s being presented, revealing little about the current state of high school
education or religious orthodoxy in Russia.
Petr Skvortsov is excellent, however, as young Veniamin (Venya), the
only developed character in the film, as the rest are all caricatures. Spouting condemnation at every opportunity,
where he envisions himself as the lone voice of the Holy Spirit, his
spontaneous outbursts provide a literary text for the film. After witnessing the bullying of a disabled
young gay student, Grigory (Aleksandr Gorchilin, who played the role of Venya
in the stage version), he takes him under his wing as his lone disciple, but is
thwarted in his attempts to faith heal him by mimicking the miracles of Christ,
eventually turning on him with a vengeance.
Similarly, Venya mocks his biology teacher Elena (Victoria Isakova), refuting
her scientific teachings of evolution with the scripture’s view of
Creation. At an administrative hearing,
the head authority (Svetlana Bragarnik) acquiesces to his demands and brings
Creationism into the classroom alongside Darwin, while also caving in on his
demands that girls be more modestly dressed, leaving Elena on her own as the
sole voice of dissent against this young rabble rouser, yet she loses her grip
as well, going off on her own deranged and often pathetic rants. Rather than elevate the material, the
Biblical scripture becomes the means to incite anti-gay and anti-Semitic
rhetoric, where instead of inspirational, it serves a destructive purpose. While there is interspersed humor throughout
(as it is supposed to be a satire), not enough, apparently, as it bogs down in
its own chosen rhetoric, a toxic, scorched earth, religious crusade leading to
a somewhat frantic and ridiculously discombobulated ending, becoming gloomily
fatalistic, as there are no forces standing in the way.
Note
While the director
has been an outspoken critic of Putin, his dissident views have landed him
under house arrest, accused of corruption, making him the second director (after
Iran’s Jafar Panahi) banned from attending the 2018 Cannes Film Festival due to
government charges filed against them.
