The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

This is a Romanian film and was one of the first films to signify what would become known to the world as the "Romanian New Wave" along with Trafic, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Police, Adjective. 

Typically these films are stories of people experiencing hardship in either 80s or present-day Romania due to the government's maddening bureaucracy and communist policies in the past and their rocky transition to democracy and a free-market in the present.  They are shot in very long takes, in natural lighting, and are realist in style. 

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a satire about the healthcare system in modern-day Romania.  The story takes place over about 8 hours and focuses on an older man who lives alone and has been experiencing headaches and vomiting since he woke up that morning.  He is known to be a heavy drinker, but he seems to be a kindly old man who loves his cats and is a genuinely nice person.

The film details his attempts to get decent medical attention, but at every turn, he is treated with hostility or indifference.  The ambulance takes an hour to get to his house, he is transported to a total of 4 hospitals because none of the hospitals have room for him, he is barked at by almost every doctor and nurse, and told that he must have done it to himself since he drinks.

The doctors in the film are cold and hostile, sarcastic and completely unsympathetic.  What makes the film compelling, I think, is that we, the audience, really like Mr. Lazarescu and know that he is a gentle soul.  As his condition progressively worsens throughout the film as Mr. Lazarescu is handed from one doctor to another, it is painful to watch him suffer at the hands of a bureaucratic and uncaring system in which people are viewed as nothing more than problems to be dealt with.

It is not new for films to criticize doctors as being cold and uncaring, and I can see why someone would object to this portrayal of them.  However, I think the film is not only criticizing doctors, but the system in which doctors are made to operate.  How does one have time for empathy when he/she is overworked, is made to adhere to a bureaucratic system and doesn't get paid enough?  There are not enough resources, not enough money, not enough facilities...

Really, though, these are paltry excuses.  Mr. Lazarescu is the only humane person in the entire film and he's probably the poorest of all the characters.  Even his sister and daughter treat him with disrespect and hostility.  Nobody seems to have patience for Mr. Lazarescu, for his eccentricities, for his cats.

The film seems to be asking the question, "Where is the humanity?" and offering up a grim diagnosis.

Highly Recommended.


P.S. -- This is really a misleading trailer.  The movie is funny at parts, but not slapstick humor the way it is portrayed here.  In the Loop, this is not.