NYFF Review: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

It should come as little surprise that a film with an on-the-nose title like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu approaches its subject in an almost documentary-like fashion. The first in a projected series of films designed to answer Rohmer's Six Moral Tales (entitled Six Stories from the Bucharest Suburbs), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is director Cristi Puiu's second feature -- a Divine Comedy (of errors) that follows Dante Remus Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu), a sixty-something curmudgeon, across a single night as he seeks medical care for what begins as a simple headache. The black-comedic tone of the film is established early on, as Dante visits his next-door neighbors in search of medication. The bickering couple are the first of many who will simply write off Dante's illness as a result of too much alcohol, and the litany of medications they argue about borders on the absurd. Eventually, an ambulance is called, and thus begins Mr. Lazarescu's descent into the hellish world of contemporary healthcare. The issue at hand here is not a bureaucratic one -- there is no problem with Mr. Lazarescu's medical coverage, nor does he get buried in forms or is forced to wait for hours in an emergency room. (When was the last time you got to see an emergency room doctor that quick?) The humanity of those in the medical profession is what Puiu is going after, and there's far too little to be found in the characters we encounter in any of the hospitals that Lazarescu is carted off to. Some of the doctors are simply jokers (Lazarescu: Doctor, my head hurts. Doctor: Good, that means you have one), while others are arrogant, egotistical monsters without a hint of bedside manner. There's a remarkable lack of trust amongst them, and not a single doctor accepts the diagnosis or suggestion of the one who preceded them. (The amount of contradiction is staggering.) Pride is what fuels them on, as the ambulance driver (Luminita Gheorghiu) learns on several occasions when she dares to offer an opinion about the patient she has spent the last several hours with. Yet with all the abuse and insults thrown her way, it is she alone who will recognize Lazarescu as a human being, and not merely another case. The parallels to The Divine Comedy are obvious, though one would be hard pressed to locate paradise for this malaised Dante. There are two Virgils present here -- one is a brother-in-law that Dante owes money to, and the other is a doctor at Lazarescu's final hospital. (The presence of this Virgil, instead of Beatrice, is but one hint that we are nowhere near paradise.) One could argue that he never escapes the Inferno, and that the film's closing moments could be interpreted as Lazarescu in Limbo. Though two and a half hours long, and full of long takes, Puiu keeps the action moving, thanks in part to his shaky shoulder-cam, which adds to the documentary-like feel. (Comparisons to Frederick Wiseman are spot on.) The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is one of those fascinating hybrids -- funny at one moment, horrifying at the next -- and one of those films that you walk out of feeling positively drained. Let's just hope the right wing doesn't use the film as an argument against socialized medicine. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu has been picked up by Tartan, and is opening in May 2006.

Comments

[girish]

Excellent review, Filmbrain. And a great movie.

I liked the manner in which the film shifted the emphasis from the WHAT (what will happen to Mr. Lazarescu?--the title provides you the answer) to the HOW. It reminds me of the Bresson film A Man Escaped (original French title: "A Man, Condemned To Death, Escapes") which does the same thing.

[Darren]

I've deliberately allowed myself some time and distance before trying to rank the films I saw at TIFF. Over the past week, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu has steadily grown in my imagination. The more I think about it, the more miraculous it seems. How easily this film could have fallen apart, but it just gets stronger and stronger until -- poof -- it cuts to black.

[dvd]

Did anyone see the other Dantean film from Toronto, L'Enfer? I've heard mixed things, but the Kieslowski connection makes it incredibly appealing...