Cannes Film Festival 2016 – The disciple (Uchenik)the new feature film of the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, and presented in competition in the selection A certain look During this 69th edition of the Cannes Festival, is an adaptation of a play which he had previously rose on the boards.
Through this film the director attacks a scourge that affects our societies: religious obscurantism which attracts more and more young people around the world. These, just like Veniamin (Petr Skvortssov), the main character, consider the world to be plagued by the devil or the evil and consider themselves invested with a mission of purification.
The director describes the trajectory that can lead these young people to the worst and the way they use religion to try to dominate those around them and give meaning to their lives.
“”For God, I am ready for anything, even to dieSaid Veniamin. This frightening replica shows how handled young people can be manipulated and how far they can go.
By following the Veniamin’s journey, the director will try to show this embrying, but also the reaction of the people around these young people. Some will be overwhelmed, others will be accomplices, sometimes by their passivity, others will find an echo to their own conservatism, their sexism, their homophobia or their anti -Semitism. Only a few, such as Elena (Victoria Isakova), the teacher of biology, will stand up and face these fanatics. In the film, this teacher will try to fight the adolescent with his own weapons, by opposing an interpretation different from certain passages of the Bible.
In fact, it is a battle between scientific discourse, logic and rigor and extremist religious discourse. Between the two, a whole range of nuances: atheists, conservatives by tradition, believers out of habit, moderate believers and those who do not feel concerned at all, limiting themselves to working and trying to support their primary and food needs.
Turned upside down, Veniamin’s mother will discover that her son has become very believing. She notices that he changes, that her behavior is bizarre and that he isolates himself more and more, compared to the group and to society.
At first, Veniamin will for example refuse to put herself in a swimsuit for his swimming class with the school. He will also refuse to see girls in bikini since the Bible wants women to be decent. This will not prevent him from elsewhere, when his mother obliges him to attend the course, to look with a vicious eye the naked bodies of his comrades.
The mother also discovers that her son reads the Bible and wants to apply it to the letter. From there all his actions and speeches are dictated by this Bible. He will no longer provide any effort to understand or dialogue with others. He just wants to apply what, for him, is the will of God and impose this divine word to all. Now in the Bible there are violent texts. Moreover all along the film, whenever Veniamin recites a biblical verse, the references of this verse appear on the screen. The director wanted to show that these texts, sometimes of extreme violence, really exist in the Bible and that leaving them within the reach of anyone can be very dangerous.
What is the role of the Bible and religious texts in general? Should they apply them to the letter? Are these texts timeless and apply to all humans? Elena the teacher is categorical: these texts are 2000 years old, are exceeded and no longer meet the needs and reality of the 21st century.
The student is so obsessed with his religious beliefs that he loses any measure. He no longer knows how to distinguish between good and evil and ended up taking himself for a kind of God or Messiah. He also finds that people do not do enough to defend their religion. He will go so far as to reproach the Pope for not doing what it takes to defend Christianity. He will ask her why in other religions, believers fight for their God and go to jihad, while among Christians they remain their arms and do nothing?
The film also allows a reflection on teaching methods: should we limit ourselves to give theoretical courses that may not be understood or give practical courses that may shock?
The example of the course of sex education during which we try to teach students to put on condoms on a carrot is significant. The course as a whole is rejected by the student believing extremist. For him the two themes addressed by the teacher, namely homosexuality and contraception are contrary to religion, the Bible condemning homosexuality and prohibiting sexual relations when they do not aim for procreation. For him, it is therefore completely forbidden to use condoms since they precisely prevent this procreation.
When the director arrives to end the argument within the class, she is herself shocked by the teacher’s methods. It disapproves of the use of carrots and condoms and even animal videos showing sex. She gives the teacher the order to do his sex education lesson using parables and images.
The teacher’s response is significant, for her the effectiveness prevails. What would the courses of sex education be used except to avoid unwanted pregnancies in adolescent girls and the transmission of dangerous and incurable diseases? How to explain to the students if they are not showing them how to do it?
In fact, throughout the film this teacher will fight against this system sclerotic by religious beliefs and Puritan conservatism.
The course on the evolution of the human species is also significant. On the one hand, scientists who believe in the evolution of species, evolution demonstrated by science and archaeological discoveries and paleontologists and on the other side the creationists who think that God has created man and all living species as we know him. Veniamin completely refuses this course which goes against his beliefs. He will prevent the teacher from giving it and will disrupt the class.
The most amazing is that the director of the school, called to the rescue, will not be able to decide. She will not provide any explanation, but she will inflict a warning to the teacher because the latter has not been able to maintain order in her class.
The final scene of the film is very beautiful. The conservatives and various extremists will eventually discourage and have the teacher returned. But she turns back, and repeating like a litany that she will not leave, she will take off her shoes, nail them, in the proper sense of the term, on the class of the class and put them back. It is nailed to the ground. She will not leave, she is determined to fight against everyone to try to save the students. It is a note of hope in reality: in this struggle which exists in several societies and several religions, between the conservatives and the progressives, we must not leave the conservatives and the religious extremists invade space, it is also necessary to occupy it and fight against their retrograde speeches.
Although this film is located in Russia and shows a young extremist Christian, it fits perfectly well with the news of our Arab countries and could apply to young Islamists who radicalize and hold the same speeches and act similarly. He describes the process of fanatization of these young people and the dismay of their loved ones.
Trailer:
Neïla Driss
