Student (2012)

Darezhan Omirbayev's Student (Kazakhstan, 2012) - A roughly faithful adaptation of Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment," despite its setting in contempo Almaty, Kazakh filmmaker Darezhan Omirbayev's "Student" unspools a stark, Bressonian tale of a young man who commits an almost random act of murder. With its deadpan perfs, retro visual style and crime-story plot, the pic almost feels like an Aki Kaurismaki movie but without the jokes or rockabilly music, just the despair. "Student" is bound to study abroad at fests, especially given Omirbayev's reputation (after "Killer") as one of Kazakhstan's most accomplished helmers, but distribution will be minimal beyond the CIS and Germany, where so many Russian-speakers reside. 2012CANucr, 2012TOR. RATING: 7