A Morte do Sr. Lazarescu

This is one of those movies that you remember because it was different from any other. Well, the Anglo-Saxon viewers will probably remember Bringing Out the Dead with Nicholas Cage and find similarities. But this is not a film that focuses on the characters, but on the system, the people are ordinary people with ordinary needs and flaws, working inside a system that itself is not perfect.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a movie that wants to shock by presenting horrible flaws in a medical system we all need to trust, it is a film that presents the system close to reality, maybe even in a better light than most of us Romanians see it, and still flawed.

The story itself is based on a true event and the end is completely non judgemental. You get to see it and think about it, that is it. The true beauty of the film is the normality of every situation, the calm or unrest of people that is completely ordinary and the way it drags the subject of the movie (Lazarescu himself) from a sickly lonely old man, but otherwise a normal human being, to the end.

I think it is a good film overall, a great film as Romanian films are concerned, and also a good watch for non Romanians as well.

Forty years after the last big prize received by Liviu Ciulei, director Cristi Puiu is back in the Cannes festival list of prizes with this strong but sensible creation. A new generation of Romanian cinema makers is born, and it not only succeeds in making a strong statement about the situation in today's Romania, but does it in a way that makes sense for international audiences.

There are three levels one can see Puiu's film. The first is the relation between the single human and the medical system. 'Moartea domnului Lazarescu' is the anti-'ER' with the universal character of the paternal doctor, playing God just to hide his own lack of competence and his indifference is kind of universal.

Then we have the story of Dante (yes!) Lazarescu descending in five hours the spiral stairs between being a pauper drunken in today's Bucharest towards almost certain physical death. An yet, despite the gradual physical degradation admirably acted by Ion Fiscuteanu, Mr. Lazarescu keeps intact his moral and human dignity, even as he slowly slides into a comma.

I am not sure whether folks who did not live in Romania or other former communist countries will catch easily the third layer. Lazarescu lives in a world in decomposition. Dictature is gone, but no social help system replaced it, his family is far away, his neighbors are simple people, indifferent and hardly coping with their own problem. Yet, in this decrepit medium he will find in the assistant Mioara a caring person, who will not only try to save him, but will ease his last hours with the feeling that yet there is somebody who cared for him. It's not quality of life, it's more - quality of humanity.

For anyone who has made a trip to or has accompanied a loved one to the emergency room, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" may be too realistic to bear.

A few years ago, my family called the ambulance for one of our relatives. He was having vague back pain -- we couldn't get him to communicate with us about it. He didn't want to go to the hospital, but his pain was too great for him not to. He is an alcoholic, and to this day lives under the assumption that none of us know he's an alcoholic, so I think his fear of the hospital had somewhat to do with the fear that his "secret" would be exposed. We ended up in a living hell of smug doctors, each with a different diagnosis of his condition, but who were all in agreement that the patient should be treated like dirt because of his addiction. If he wasn't going to care about his own health, they seemed to think, then why should they?

So needless to say, despite the fact that it takes place in Romania, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" hit frightfully close to home for me, as it's about a lonely, alcoholic man and his nighttime trip into the purgatory of emergency-room bureaucracy. The foreign setting aside, this film could have taken place in the USA and been no different. Nobody has time for Mr. Lazarescu, everyone has a different theory as to what is wrong with him, the nurses are more interested in making sure paperwork is filled out than they are in taking care of the living, breathing human being suffering -- and perhaps dying -- on the stretcher in front of them. In one scene, the doctors insult and belittle the ambulance nurse when she tries to offer her own assessment of Mr. Lazarescu's condition, holding their advanced schooling over and against her. We don't learn much about Mr. Lazarescu, and so we see events occur from the perspective of this paramedic who takes charge of him and carts him from one hospital to the next in a desperate attempt to find one that will treat him. To her, Mr. Lazarescu is a job, yet she's the closest thing to a caring relative he has, so cold and indifferent is the rest of the health care world.

This film is astonishing in its meticulous detail, and it's hard to believe it's not a documentary, something out of the world of Fredrick Wiseman. Most scenes are filmed in long takes, the camera standing back at an objective distance simply capturing the whirl of human activity taking place around it. The acting is amazing, for the very reason that no one seems to be acting. It's a deeply unsettling film; we know Mr. Lazarescu will likely die -- from cancer if not from the surgery he's about to undergo when the film closes, and anyway, the title tells us as much. But we don't see him die in the film -- the last scene is of him being washed, shaved and dressed for surgery, a human being reduced to a slab of living flesh on a table, robbed of even his last shred of dignity, while no one appears to care. Somehow, that lack of closure is one of the most unsettling things in the film; it captures the feeling one has when you've finally gotten your loved one to the hospital and all you can do is wait, not sure whether or not you're going to see him alive again.

Grade: A

Mr. Lazarescu: nearing 63, lives alone with his three cats, underwent surgery due to ulcer, has a sister still living in Romania and a daughter who left (it seems) unannounced and moved to Canada. This is the man: old, alone and ill. A terrible fate.

Puiu's movie, inspired from true events (some years ago, a man was transported from one hospital to the other with a most tragic consequence) follows its protagonist through the final stages of his life: feeling ill, Lazarescu calls for an ambulance and awaits its (delayed) arrival drinking and making telephone calls. As the hands of the clock turn and the ambulance is nowhere to be heard or seen, the old man goes next door, trying to get some help from the neighbors: a stereotype of their kind. Once the ambulance finally arrives, Lazarescu embarks on a most dreadful road trip, from hospital to hospital, in an elaborate attempt to diagnose and operate him. The story begins.

It would be unfair not to acknowledge the film's authenticity from the outset. Truly segmented - as the director himself affirmed, regarding "Lazarescu" as the first in six stories about the Romanian capital - in several (short) "stories of Bucharest", we meet most intriguing characters and situations, each of them highly rewarding on different levels. Good doctors, bad doctors, grumpy doctors, snobbish doctors, pitiful doctors - all the guys and girls our great medical system can offer. Still, some continue to resemble human beings, which - to a certain degree - is quite an achievement.

The bad light Puiu sheds on them may be diminished by the fact that the night Lazarescu chose to fall ill was most unfortunate: a terrible car accident filled most of the hospitals so that it was extremely difficult to find a place for an old, drunk man who was automatically labeled as a drinker and treated as such. Few characters in the film show authentic sympathy for Lazarescu, as most of them just want to get on with the job and do themselves a greater good. There is no such concept of readiness to help a fellow man struggling between life and death: commodity reigns. Unlike Lazarus, our main character will most probably not rise from the dead. And the people who still stand and didn't give their everything are up to their throats in guilt.

But this is the terrible, depressing half of the story. A most regretful reality. Cristi Puiu's and Razvan Radulescu's (a bit overlong) script is at times filled with moments of sheer irony, sarcasm and cynicism, all worth their laughs. Some of these moments are brilliant. Lazarescu is witty and gutsy, as long as he can talk. He is a man who - despite what others think - wants to stand up for himself and would rather not let anyone treat him like scum. Sadly, though, all is part of a gigantic vicious circle: doctors remain people and patients are not at all different. Flawed. Yet, there is a question of humanity and dignity involved. A choice between what is right and what is easy, as the saying goes.

I found this title on a list of outstanding foreign films. It tells the story of a man who has been forgotten, who would like to live, but who is seen as a burden to all those who he encounters. He has had ulcer surgery and apparently other serious, probably fatal ailments. He makes calls to his "loved ones." He tries to navigate his apartment, but is overwhelmed because of pain and weakness. A neighbor grudgingly tries to help him but feels the need to lecture him. It is apparent that he has had issues with alcohol in the past and is quite acerbic. Eventually, he put in an ambulance and a journey from hospital to hospital begins. At no point do the care givers treat him with simple humanity. The paramedic, a tired woman, tries to see to hits needs and get him care, but she is often rebuffed by doctors and hospital personnel. This is gut wrenching and we feel the vicarious pain. He has ceased to be of value in this society. The closing scene is very hard to watch.