ACTION! Issue 2 | 页面 22

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

"The Death of Mr. Lazarescu", is a film

directed by Cristi Puiu, which marked

the recent history of the Romanian cinema.

                 The film was unanimously praised by

critics, being considered by

Alex Leo Serban "an honest, tough and

true film ... that has become almost

a black comedy, a kind of urban legend."

  In Time Out London, Dave Calhoun

wrote: "Lazarescu will be a refreshing and

exciting discovery. Revival ?,

there is heard a skeptical question."

The film follows Lazarescu's long and

unpleasant journey from one hospital to

another – he had a car accident.

All the hospitals from Bucharest are

overloaded so that Lazarescu can not be

hospitalized. He has to face the cold indifference of the arrogant doctors, who hesitate to save a man who seems to have destroyed his own health.

"The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is not a film about the health system from Romania, but it is a film in which this system is perfectly presented. "This movie talks about me, about my fear of death, about my fear of separation. I live a nightmare only thinking that one day I will separate from the people I love, the people I care about, "declared the film director (aarc.ro).

Naked, stretched out on the table, filmed unmistakably, Dante Remus Lazarescu was washed and prepared for surgery. He had finally been admitted to a hospital! He was in the waiting room of the operating block. How would he die?

 Suddenly, the film ends. The viewer is puzzled and disappointed by the steep ending, but then he understands that the pre-operative toilet is actually the mortuary toilet.

It was not for the surgery that nurses washed him, but for the other world. "You are born naked in this world, man, naked and helpless as a baby you leave this world." Mr. Lăzărescu had been already dead. The system had killed him. First of all, he had been morally murdered. He was physically condemned to death – the surgery was too late - and on the screen, the presence of his biological death would have been a "technical", insignificant, redundant detail.

", the social or the political system - but the human system, the generalized indifference, indolence, indifference, non-involvement. Cristi Puiu chose the hospital system for his personal (human and artistic) reasons, but his film refers much more to the human condition in general, to that huge sin of indifference to the fellow beings.

There is only one really absurd situation, actually Kafkaan situation that prepares the end of the film and the climax of the film: the refusal of the two doctors from Filaret hospital, who neglect the patient and end up rejecting the surgery because the poor man can not sign " The Declaration of responsibility ".

"The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is an extremely artistic film (both in value and in meaning). It succeeds in building, through a perfect mastery of cinematic means, an ultra-realistic vision; to show reality as it is, without fail in the stack of the snapshot. Mr. Lazarescu's apartment, the block of flats, the various hospitals, the clothing of the characters, the typologies, the behaviors, the movements in space, the lighting - all distinguished by the cruel expressiveness of a reality not only surprised in its unsightly nudity, but also transposed into film code.

Using cinematic means, Cristi Puiu can afford to defy the rules and transfer the spontaneity of life to the filmmaker. The blast of the frames, the hoarfishing movements from one character to another, following a gesture, movement, etc., at speeds that cancel the sharf and fluency, fit perfectly into Mr. Lazarescu's ultimate odyssey to death . The seemingly negligent cloak, with otherwise inaccessible areas of darkness, actually forms compositions. Not to mention the absurd dialogues, what seem to defy any dramaturgical norms - but all those bare, banal, unruly, unbearable talks make up the fresco of the human spirituality over which the whole film is viewing.

            The film makes you to keep your breath, and if some sections seem to be tremendous, lean, boring, they fall into the category of " studied imperfections ", having the role of creating a queue, immobility, mortification. The delays kill Mr. Lazarescu. Thus, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is a difficult and very atypical film.