The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Moartea Domnului Lazarescu) (2005)

Runtime: 153 minutes

Directed by: Cristi Puiu

Starring: Ioan Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu, Doru Ana, Serban Pavlu, Dana Dogaru

From: Mandragora

Somehow, my first Romanian movie. It's not a scene I have avoided on purpose-it just turned out that way. It is not something I am proud of, when there are directors like Cristian Mungiu making highly-regarded films. This effort from Cristi Puiu has been highly regarded for the past 15 years and as it is on Netflix, that is how last night was spent.

It is a rather dark comedy concerning the titular Lazarescu, a man about to turn 63 who lives alone in his shabby apartment, a trio of cats his only companions. He had surgery for his ulcer years ago and is a hard drinker; one night his health deteriorates. Neighbors do assist him and call for an ambulance, but they act condescending to him by berating him for abusing the bottle on a bad stomach. From there, a lady EMT is the only one who cares for him as his health falls at a rapid rate and he is shuttled around to different hospitals because the doctors are A-holes (including one guy who I'll describe as “Romanian Abe Lincoln”) who act deplorably even if it sucks that they are overworked and presumably underpaid.

It is 2 ½ hours yet did not feel that lengthy as we see our title character degenerate into a mess, the whole situation becoming more absurd the longer it goes. As the director was a hypochondriac for a few years and thus had much experience with the Romanian health care system, I can assume it is as bad as portrayed. Then again, there's a recent documentary (Collective) which I haven't viewed but I hear it's about how corrupt and dysfunctional the Romanian health care system is... if I ever visit Bucharest or Transylvania, I sure as hell hope I never get sick there. For all his faults, I did feel sympathy for how Mr. Lazarescu was treated.

I do regret not having done any sort of dive on Romanian film until last night; for certain more will be seen from this point on out. One detail I do have to share which brought the biggest laugh from me: our lead has a room in his apartment that has photos and posters of... Kim Wilde! It is established he has an adult daughter who lives in Canada so an assumption can be made that he's lived in the apartment for decades and that was her bedroom-and it hasn't changed since the 80's. It is a funnier scenario to mention that either this near senior citizen is a huge fan of Ms. Wilde or that she was still mega-over in Romania back in the early 21st century.