Andrezej Wajda's dramatization of Fjodor M. Dostojewski's novel focuses on the three main characters: The student, Raskolnikov, has slain an old moneylender. His motive has less to do with greed than with his ambition to perpetuate a perfect crime. Raskolnikov considers himself an intellectual supremo: he feels he is responding to a calling which empowers him to eliminate such inferior forms of life as that of the wretched usury-practicing woman. Wajda finds here the sprinkling of a proto-fascist ideology which he wants to expose and attack through the medium of theater. The interrogating judge, Porfirif Petrovitsch, is his prosecutor: Petrovitsch has no concrete evidences, but he intuitively feels the macabre in Raskolnikov. He pushes him to the edge until Raskolnikov breaks down and confesses. Only the streetwalker Sonja, through her meekness and faith in God, who brings humanity and consolation in this sombre surrounding. She succeeds in awakening Raskolnikov's guilt and in bringing him to remorse. (…)
(Siegfried Kienzle, Spiel im ZDF)