I've been viewing a bunch of film adaptations of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" since reading it, and I'll take this odd, loose reworking over several supposedly-faithful cinematic iterations that slavishly attempt to depict key scenes from a novel. For all their devotion to character personalities and story elements, most of these movies miss the most important aspects of a text. In this case, it's not only a tale of murder and redemption and the underlying philosophy and religion, it's also about how those things are fueled by art and fever dreams. "Nina" is slow to start, inconsistent and meanders into seemingly irrelevant detours, but it fundamentally grasps the important parts of Dostoevsky's book.
Dostoevsky's protagonist, Raskolnikov, wrote the murders before he committed them--doing so in an article of his that is published whereby he claims that the exceptional people may rightly disobey laws. It's something of a story-within-a-story: a literary mise-en-abyme. Indeed, the novel is full of this sort of doubling: two murders, two suspected murderers, two dying mothers, two caddish suitors of the sister, two brutal horse-related incidents, Raskolnikov's two lovers, overall character duality, life and afterlife, etc. Thus, Nina, the goth protagonist of a visual art form, draws the murders before she commits them. She does this thrice, for a triptych. The live-action picture changes to basic animation in the style of Nina's drawings for these murder scenes, one with an axe as per the novel and another with a knife, until Nina's suffocating of her landlady with a plastic bag is intercut with live-action and drawings. Even more than in the prose, murder here is visually equated to art.
Some "Crime and Punishment" films do better with the dream imagery, which is also analogous to cinema. None have done so to such a heightened state of delirium as in "Nina," though. One of the biggest missteps here, methinks, is that the picture spends too much time trying to sympathize with her instability as the result of her being a supposed victim because she doesn't simply get what she wants for free. She is an unlikable character, as others have criticized, but if you think she's irredeemable, I wouldn't recommend Raskolnikov. Nevertheless, It would've been more interesting had the picture focused on what I would've assumed to be her drug intoxication. After all, Guta Stresser, as Nina, looks like someone strung out--and not merely from smoking a marijuana joint and dancing to techno music. Regardless, this is one of the few adaptations I've seen to feature the childhood nightmare of a horse being beaten, which is in the novel. The Kazakhstani version, "Student" (2012), references it, and the 2000 animated short from Poland briefly shows it, but it's not an integral part of either narrative as it is here and as it was for Dostoevsky. As with Nina's drawings, her dreams are in black-and-white, too. Moreover, this dream points to the origins of Raskolnikov and Nina's philosophy of their own superiority--despite this belief, unfortunately, only being glossed over here in the opening scene.
There are a few other little moments that demonstrate a striking familiarity with the source prose. Both protagonists receive letters from their mothers. Indeed, the movie extrapolates from the similar problems that Raskolnikov had with paying rent. Nina has a friend who's a prostitute, like Raskolnikov's Sonya. She abuses a blind person, like Svidrigaïlov is accused to have done. She aids a woman who is being pursued by a potential abuser, as did Raskolnikov. When she goes to kill her landlady, she passes by painters in another apartment, which Raskolnikov also did on his way to the pawnbroker. A man knocks on the door after the murder in both stories. Another man inquired about both of them, and the one here does everything but call out Nina as a "murderer." And like Dostoevsky's protagonist, Nina becomes increasingly tormented as she feels the police closing in on her.
From there, "Nina" diverges considerably, as the picture increasingly reflects her unstable grasp on reality. This includes a spiral shot down a staircase after a montage of stair stepping, which reminds one of "Vertigo" (1958). I probably would've rated this even higher had it concluded with the dream that led to Raskolnikov's regeneration, but there's no conversion for Nina. She's a lost soul, from beginning to end. To be fair, however, Raskolnikov doesn't actually reform in any of the movie adaptations. Most end with his confession, but it's in the epilogue nightmare that he conclusively abandons his former philosophy of superiority. Only a couple versions even include any of the epilogue and never the dream. It's unfortunate for a story about the dichotomy between the extraordinary and the ordinary that so many of the movies should be ordinary. At least, "Nina" is not ordinary.
Dostoevsky's protagonist, Raskolnikov, wrote the murders before he committed them--doing so in an article of his that is published whereby he claims that the exceptional people may rightly disobey laws. It's something of a story-within-a-story: a literary mise-en-abyme. Indeed, the novel is full of this sort of doubling: two murders, two suspected murderers, two dying mothers, two caddish suitors of the sister, two brutal horse-related incidents, Raskolnikov's two lovers, overall character duality, life and afterlife, etc. Thus, Nina, the goth protagonist of a visual art form, draws the murders before she commits them. She does this thrice, for a triptych. The live-action picture changes to basic animation in the style of Nina's drawings for these murder scenes, one with an axe as per the novel and another with a knife, until Nina's suffocating of her landlady with a plastic bag is intercut with live-action and drawings. Even more than in the prose, murder here is visually equated to art.
Some "Crime and Punishment" films do better with the dream imagery, which is also analogous to cinema. None have done so to such a heightened state of delirium as in "Nina," though. One of the biggest missteps here, methinks, is that the picture spends too much time trying to sympathize with her instability as the result of her being a supposed victim because she doesn't simply get what she wants for free. She is an unlikable character, as others have criticized, but if you think she's irredeemable, I wouldn't recommend Raskolnikov. Nevertheless, It would've been more interesting had the picture focused on what I would've assumed to be her drug intoxication. After all, Guta Stresser, as Nina, looks like someone strung out--and not merely from smoking a marijuana joint and dancing to techno music. Regardless, this is one of the few adaptations I've seen to feature the childhood nightmare of a horse being beaten, which is in the novel. The Kazakhstani version, "Student" (2012), references it, and the 2000 animated short from Poland briefly shows it, but it's not an integral part of either narrative as it is here and as it was for Dostoevsky. As with Nina's drawings, her dreams are in black-and-white, too. Moreover, this dream points to the origins of Raskolnikov and Nina's philosophy of their own superiority--despite this belief, unfortunately, only being glossed over here in the opening scene.
There are a few other little moments that demonstrate a striking familiarity with the source prose. Both protagonists receive letters from their mothers. Indeed, the movie extrapolates from the similar problems that Raskolnikov had with paying rent. Nina has a friend who's a prostitute, like Raskolnikov's Sonya. She abuses a blind person, like Svidrigaïlov is accused to have done. She aids a woman who is being pursued by a potential abuser, as did Raskolnikov. When she goes to kill her landlady, she passes by painters in another apartment, which Raskolnikov also did on his way to the pawnbroker. A man knocks on the door after the murder in both stories. Another man inquired about both of them, and the one here does everything but call out Nina as a "murderer." And like Dostoevsky's protagonist, Nina becomes increasingly tormented as she feels the police closing in on her.
From there, "Nina" diverges considerably, as the picture increasingly reflects her unstable grasp on reality. This includes a spiral shot down a staircase after a montage of stair stepping, which reminds one of "Vertigo" (1958). I probably would've rated this even higher had it concluded with the dream that led to Raskolnikov's regeneration, but there's no conversion for Nina. She's a lost soul, from beginning to end. To be fair, however, Raskolnikov doesn't actually reform in any of the movie adaptations. Most end with his confession, but it's in the epilogue nightmare that he conclusively abandons his former philosophy of superiority. Only a couple versions even include any of the epilogue and never the dream. It's unfortunate for a story about the dichotomy between the extraordinary and the ordinary that so many of the movies should be ordinary. At least, "Nina" is not ordinary.