Review of The Student

This is the main idea of this film, which is a parable and a satire at the same time. The main character is a text-book case of a psychotic person, with all relevant schizophrenia symptoms (visual hallucinations, illusion of grandeur, paranoid ideas). Many of the scenes actually describe psychotic crises (getting undressed, wearing the ape costume, carrying the cross, abusing his friend, killing him etc.). So this is actually simple to understand. But the movie goes beyond that. The parable aspect of the film is that no one (neither the biology teacher) understands the madness of this character, and treat him like a normal person (or at least in acceptable terms). They all come into argument with him, support or contradict his delirious ideas, and finally tolerate his fundamentalist way of thinking (which is the product of mental disease). Of course the situation is not realistic; in the normal world, the person would be immediately taken to a hospital. But the point that the director is trying to make is that fundamentalist ideas are a delirium that is contagious, that other people tend to lose their critical thinking, that science can not withstand the attack of religious ideas and that normal people can actually become victims when the liberal values are dismissed. A beautiful, heart-breaking movie about how society's values can be lost, along with sanity, love and respect to each other.