听 User Rating 
Romanian writer and director Cristi Puiu gives us the last two hours of a man's life, real time, in The Death of Mr Lazarescu. Suffering stomach pains, the eccentric 63-year-old widower (Ion Fiscuteanu) is shuttled between a series of Bucharest hospitals. As the night wears on, bureaucracy, inefficiency, and indifference attend Lazarescu's demise. It makes for a slow, demanding watch. But if you're tired of Da Vinci Code style bombast, try looking to this experimental movie.
Mr Lazarescu lives alone in a run down apartment. He talks to his three cats, and drinks incessantly. What's more, when we join him Lazarescu has been suffering stomach pains for a week; soon, he's knocking on the door of his white-trash neighbours Sandu (Doru Ana) and Miki (Dana Dogaru) for painkillers, and an ambulance has been called. But at every emergency room, short-staffed and cynical doctors find a reason to turn Lazarescu away.
"A PORTRAIT OF AN ORDINARY, UNREMARKABLE DEATH"
What emerges is a portrait, then, of an ordinary, unremarkable death, and an indictment of the safety nets - community, family, medical care - supposed to catch us when we need them most. But don't expect this movie to relinquish its treasures easily; as we dip in and out of ER rooms there is little by way of obvious drama; instead we watch doctors squabble, look at scans, and administer drugs, as Lazarescu sinks ever deeper. No surprise, then, that there's the occasional feeling that this film - like Lazarescu's weary paramedic team - is circling endlessly, and getting nowhere. But Fiscuteanu's Lazarescu is a strange, compelling creation, and if you allow it time, this haunting, artful movie will get under your skin.
