This Romanian film reminded me of the work of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have won the top prize at Cannes twice. It has a slow build that takes getting use to, but with patience, the rewards are well worth the time.
Dante Remus Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu, 1996’s TOO LATE) has been not feeling well since the morning. He has a stomach and headache and can’t keep anything down, except some alcohol. His sister doesn’t want to hear the bellyaching of her 63-year-old brother the drunk, who survives through the kindness of her husband, Virgil. Mr. Lazarescu gets fairly much the same reaction from his preoccupied neighbors, Sandu and Miki Sterian (Doru Ana & Dana Dogaru). He has called the ambulance, which takes forever. The attendant Mioara (Luminita Gheorghiu, CODE UNKNOWN) gives him an injection and tells him to go see the doctor who operated on his ulcers. But when Mr. Lazarescu passes out in the bathroom, she decides to take him to the hospital. This will start the long arduous ordeal that Mr. Lazarescu must take to get the medical care that he needs.
The style of the film is to just watch. Director Cristi Puiu has the patience to let the story play out naturally, not rushing the story. The details we learn early on will play poignantly later on in the film when Mr. Lazarescu is nearly delirious and trying to communicate with cocky doctors and tired residents. Mr. Lazarescu is a poor, scruffy man, who lives with lots of cats in a small dirty apartment. One of his enjoyments in life is to drink, which he gets constant criticism for. His drinking even gets in the way of him getting more compassionate attention when he arrives at the hospital. Because no one comes with him to the hospital, Mioara becomes Mr. Lazarescu’s champion pressuring residents, who are more interested in their petty problems or bureaucratic red tape then getting to the bottom of what is really wrong with the sick man. Due to a bus accident, Mr. Lazarescu will be shuffled to four different hospitals during the course of the night.
By simply watching and listening to the casual talk of the characters, we learn a lot about Mioara. She has good friends at some of the hospitals that go out of their way to help her. However, at others, younger residents who have far less experience than her, try to demean and bully her. As the night gets later and later, the dark irony of the situation grows and grows.
For an American audience, the surprising thing will be the lack of insurance talk. That’s because there is universal health care in Romania. Much like THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS, universal health care is flawed when patients are only viewed as one more complication in trying to get through yet another long shift. Adding HMOs or PPOs into this story would have only made Mr. Lazarescu go crazy as well.
The film is a call for reclaiming compassion for each individual life. The title pretty much gives away the conclusion. But no one person could be blamed for the tragedy, Lazarescu’s end comes at the hands of many small decisions that stack up. If every doctor or nurse became emotionally connected to every dying person they saw, could they handle the pressure? THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU gains its power from compiling details in a way that feels like we are watching a documentary. All the characters are real humans, acting as they would under tough conditions. It’s this realism that makes the lack of regard for Mr. Lazarescu so sad.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
