The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
By Jérôme Patoux
posted July 28,
2006
In
the 1990s, a new genre of eastern European cinema conquered
western movie theaters in the form of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s
darkly realistic movies, first the Decalogue series, then
the Bleu, Blanc, Rouge trilogy. Our eyes suddenly opened
to the reality of crumbling societies fighting the shadows of
their soviet past, yet yearning to leap into the twenty-first
century. Several directors have followed in Kieslowski’s steps,
each fascinated by their particular country, all sharing the
same affection for humanity. Cristi Puiu (Romania) is one of
them, and his movie The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a
beautiful allegory of fraternal love, solidarity, (or absence
thereof), and the fight for respect and dignity in the face of
incapacitating sickness, and ultimately death.
When Mr. Lazarescu is suddenly struck by pain in the middle of
his shabby apartment, he has no choice but to surrender to his
neighbors, and later to a nurse who will go to great lengths to
ensure that he receive proper care. As he is driven from
hospital to hospital, and rolled from one emergency room to the
next, he becomes the subject of contradictory diagnoses, the
silent object of tedious bureaucratic negotiations with the
administration, and the spark of endless arguments between
medical staff that reveal the incapacity of the Romanian
society, hear mankind, to take care of its own. By patiently
following his decaying Lazarus, Cristi Puiu transforms a
gruesome odyssey on the night streets of Bucharest into a
powerful modern tragedy that transcends its location and time to
question our own humanity.
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2006 All content property of European Weekly unless where otherwise
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