The Student

At first sight, this could be a tale of initiation: Roque, a young man from the interior, comes to Buenos Aires to attend college; and right when he seemed only interested in meeting girls, he starts to get involved with politics and gets ahead in his career as a student representative. But, while focusing in the sole viewpoint of its lead character Roque, the film starts to unfold a vibrant story that opens up to different directions: utilitarian relationships, the pendular oscillation between ethics and betrayal, politics as a generational issue, the youthful urge for getting quickly ahead, the perspective of a future that could either reproduce a rancid and corrupt past or imagine a different future. Santiago Mitre has not only made a film that looks into the world of college –a place rarely visited by Argentine cinema, except for maybe Dar la cara–, he has also presented university as a mirror capable of reflecting social tensions by drawing a plot with a lucid and tireless drive for narrating Argentina. If the so-called New Argentine Cinema was ever defined as non-political, El estudiante is the most brutal and brilliant rebuttal to that fallacy: it’s not only new, but also indispensable. –BAFICI