I was not particularly taken with Omirbayev's Student, a wan retelling of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment that reduces the complexities of the prose and its philosophical annihilation and desperate search for grace into a set of thin, anti-capitalist signifiers. Bresson already showed people how to adapt this novel with a spare style, but the chaotic tone underneath appears nowhere in Omirbayev's tidy bore.
My full review is up at Spectrum Culture.
