One man's lonely demise makes harrowing watching, while Sunset is bloody for the new actress in town
Sunday July 16, 2006
Observer
(150 mins, 15)
Directed by Cristi Puiu; starring Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu
One of the most harrowing and wholly convincing movies I've seen for several years, Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr Lazarescu, tells a story that could take place in any country in the world today boasting something by way of a health service. It happens, however, to be set in Bucharest, capital of Romania, where the eponymous 62-year-old widower is insulted, injured, patronised and generally ill-treated during the last eight or nine hours of his life from mid-evening to dawn the next day. He leads a lonely life in a squalid apartment with three cats, drinks dangerous hooch and eats badly. His wife died of cancer 10 years previously, his daughter has moved to Canada and largely communicates with him through his sister, whom he rarely sees. No one cares for him apart from his surly next-door neighbours, and they don't really like him much.
It's a claustrophobic movie that only gets out of doors when the terminally ill Lazarescu is transported from one hospital to another (four in all) on a night when an ill-equipped, understaffed health service has been stretched beyond endurance by a major traffic accident. He has pains in his head and stomach and vomits regularly. As the night goes on his condition worsens and he becomes increasingly incoherent. Overworked doctors and nurses lecture him about his drinking, making him feel guilty for his condition, and they pass him on from one department to another. Only a middle-aged nurse from the ambulance that originally picked him up has any compassion, in consequence of which she receives abuse and reprimands from doctors and senior nurses. Lazarescu has spent his whole life under a variety of repressive, irresponsible regimes of the right and the left that have consistently ignored the common people and he's ended up a piece of meat on an inhumane conveyor belt. And they ask him: why do you drink?
The acting is movie naturalism at its best. Ion Fiscuteanu as Lazarescu is magnificent, as is Luminita Gheorghiu as the nurse who gives the audience some hope for humanity. This is a film to see and experience, and it justifies its 150 minutes running time.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006An aristocratic title is not enough to ensure a noble behaviour. A person's greatness comes from acknowledging the mistakes and agreeing to correct them.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
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