The Death of Mr. Lazrescu

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a film about an old alcoholic man who goes from hospital to hospital trying to find medical treatment, but no one wants to treat this nasty, old drunk. This old man has no family, and the only person that helps him is the nurse. There are Romanian elements in the film. The fact that all of the hospitals are state run, and that he has no insurance is one of the Romanian elements of the film.

This film does not sound like a comedy from the description I gave, but in fact is very funny. This is because even though the director builds some sympathy for the old man, he still does things to break the sympathy like fall off of chairs drunk. This is very funny even though we know the old man is very sick, Puiu makes the mood of an old man dying of cirrhosis much lighter than it actually is.

One of the interesting cinematographic conventions that this film uses is having all the action take place at night. This is a common element in Romanian cinema, to have the exposition take place in twenty four hours or less. This idea is also present in classical Greek drama. Also, the camera takes are extremely long, and there is not always an action taking place on screen. This contributes to the realism of the film, but it also makes it unbearably slow at times. The film is two hours and thirty minutes long. The film is still good even though it is long, although I would have preferred it shorter. It almost recreates the experience of waiting in a waiting room.

Overall, I enjoyed this film, but there were times where it was a little slow. I would give it four out of five stars.