Student | ScreenDaily | 20 May, 2012 | Howard Feinstein

"With his new film Student, Kazakh director Darezhan Omirbayev puts to rest any notion among the world’s intellectuals and literary folk that adaptations of Dostoievski’s great Crime and Punishment have been exhausted. Not only is his aesthetic singular—lean, pared down to nicely textured basics, excision of extraneous images and sounds—but the overall social, political, and geographical context is so unique that it affords him the opportunity to spin the entire narrative in an uncharted direction. The use of gorgeous spare wrapping for complex ideas is an inspired choice that keeps the entire project both accessible and stimulating."