The Death of Mr. Lazarescu Review
By David Kempler
Agonizingly slow death and movie
Who will take care of us now?
We all fear going into the hospital. It could be open-heart surgery. It could be just for a test. It doesn't really matter. Certainly there are degrees of fear but no one is ecstatic when they have to check into the hospital. Let's face it. We all know people who have died there and nothing brings us more fear and at the same time fascination than the spectre of death.
From Romania comes "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu", an examination of one man's entry into the beauracracy present in all hospitals. Director Cristi Puiu takes us on a seemingly endless trip through red tape and dreariness all of which just makes us sink lower and lower as we watch a very lonely sixty something year old man, Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu), get grinded up and spit out by the hospital system in Bucharest.
He gets shuffled back and forth between four different hospitals, one worse than the other. Everyone who works in these "houses of healing" could care less that this gentleman in front of them is dying right in front of their eyes.
One nurse, Miora Avram (Luminita Gheorghiu) transports Mr. Lazarescu back and forth between the hospitals and slowly becomes his lone advocate. This results in her being ridiculed by doctors who are more interested in putting her in her place then treating the obviously dying gentleman.
Mr. Ficuteanu does a brilliant job as the patient who withers away slowly. Unfortunately there is no subtlety in this film. It becomes a relentlessly oppressive film whose only aim appears to be to make us feel hopeless. There is nothing wrong with that but by dragging it out to an absurd 150 minutes it loses its momentum and power. Eventually we are left caring only marginally more than the doctors about Lazarescu's welfare, which is a real shame. There's a great movie in here somewhere but Mr. Puiu seems determined to not let us see and experience it. In the end the movie succumbs like Mr. Lazarescu.
