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FitnessProsBooks.com - The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
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List Price: $19.95
Our Price: $12.21
Your Save: $ 7.74 ( 39% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Tartan Video
Starring: Doru Ana, Monica Dean, Alina Berzunteanu, Doru Boguta, Mimi Branescu
Directed By: Cristi Puiu
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0842498020173
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: Tartan Video
Manufacturer: Tartan Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Tartan Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-09-12
Running Time: 153
Studio: Tartan Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: If this is humor, let's get serious!
Comment: My teenage son and I had the evening without 'Mom' and without homework, since the trimester had just ended for him with a visit to the dissection lab at UCSF. All his friends still had one more final, so he graciously asked me if I'd like to watch a movie with him. We went to the video shop, and he selected Mr. Lazarescu on the basis of the blurbs on the packaging, describing it as "a black comedy," "the most acclaimed comedy of the year," and showing a row of prize icons from Cannes, Toronto, Chicago, and New York festivals. We trotted home with high expectations.
A quarter hour into the film, having watched a very shabby alcoholic old man in his cat-infested single apartment struggle 'in denial' with a medical crisis, my son and I looked at each other in some distress and said "This is a comedy?" Eventually, as the gruesome scene rolls on in slightly condensed "real time," an ambulance arrives and Mr. Lazarescu is taken on an odyssey of cruelty and indifference to his humanity from hospital to hospital. The ambulance nurse shows a kind of embittered dutifulness and commitment to her patient's well-being, but the doctors are uniformly disdainful, arrogant, and weary, more interested in flirting with each other and in griping about their overload than in dealing with this sad old drunk whose condition deteriorates before our eyes.
My son didn't fall asleep. That's high praise from him for any film that's slower-paced than Eddy Murphy or Vince Vaughn.
Myself, I have a sardonic daydream of finding myself in a packed theater, somewhere in the world, where everybody is laughing hysterically at this film while I sit in appalled silence. Misery and shameful behavior don't add up to humor in my mind. I don't mean that this is a bad film. It's actually quite impressive in its gritty naturalism, with deliberately shoddy camera work and 'acting' so embarrassingly realistic than you have to wonder how such actors were recruited. It's jaw-droppingly horrible - despair wallowing in filth - and thus quite fascinating.
I've read a couple of other reviews here on amazon, and I find that some viewers have taken the film as an "indictment" of the woeful results of a socialized medical system. If that's the intention, then the film is completely dishonest and misleading. I've had quite a lot of experience (alas!) with the national health care systems of Western Europe - in Italy, Spain, France, and Sweden - and I've never observed anything as dysfunctional as what's shown in Mr. Lazarescu. I've gotten prompter and more courteous attention in clinics there than at Kaiser Hospitals in Washington DC and California. I'm willing enough to believe the portrayal of affairs in Romania until anyone gives contrary testimony. The picture of Romanian life in this film inspires a pretty grim prognosis for that country's recovery from its despicable dictatorship.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can't say yet
Comment: Well, I stayed up late to watch this the first time and that was a mistake. My Romanian is not very advanced so I had to read the subtitles. I fell asleep not too far in. I guess this is a movie for someone who likes movies to have a "real-life" pace.... real life is pretty slow sometimes. The acting was quite good.... but again... I prefer movies to be somewhat entertaining and not just real.... I probably slept too long to glean anything more than this: that the last few hours of life can be kinda ordinary.
I've just read all the above reviews and I guess I should rewatch it... I doubt anyone will get this far and not realize that it was the intent of the director to make an uber-realistic movie. This time, I'll start watching it much earlier.
Customer Rating:
Summary: endurance test
Comment: Painful to sit through. Further proof that not all foreign films are worth your time or money.
Middle section has some humorous moments, but the film itself, for the most part, is
not only laborious, but it takes the filmmaker one hundred and fifty three minutes to get this old, over-weight, alkie geezer to finally kick the bucket.
Want to talk about torture? This is it. And the truth is, I do not mind slow-paced films (whether made in Hollywood or somewhere else) so long as there is something going on (not necessarily killing or action, but something, something, anything gets me involved somehow...)
The reason I gave it two stars is because I see this as a wake-up call to all the heavy juicers out there who do not believe in any form of excersize... All you have to do is take a look at the tub of lard in this flick to give you a good idea what happens when the only physical activity you know is picking up the beer bottle and/or remote to change channels. (I only mention it because I've done my share of lifting said beer bottle.)
So, if for no other reason, am glad I sat through this depressing non-motion motion picture.
Now, let me see where Bullitt (starring McQueen) is on the shelf. Might be my 50th viewing, but that's okay...so long as it helps me snap out of the funk THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU put me in.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Slow start, slow end but mesmerizing in between
Comment: First off -- did I miss something at the end? He did not appear to die in the version I saw. Or if he did, nobody (including me) noticed. He was weak but alive at the end. I wanted 4.5 stars, but half stars aren't an option, so I went for five.
This film starts out slowly and I had to force myself to continue. But once Lazarescu gets into the ambulance, I was hooked. It's like rubbernecking at an accident. You know it's gonna be ugly but you just can't look away. To say I enjoyed it would be both accurate and inaccurate. I'm glad I watched it, and will watch it again (if only to listen to the Romanian. It's the one Romance language that I can't get my ears around).
I work and volunteer at a local hospital. I want everyone to watch this. I knew I'd be thinking of the US healthcare system while I watched this. You will, too. You can't help but compare in ways positive and negative.
I don't think you'll say "I loved this movie." But I do think you will not regret watching it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: When cultures and caregivers don't care
Comment: Billed as a "black comedy," there's little funny about this film, which narrates the slow demise of a sick old man caught in a culture of hostility and indifference.
Lazarescu lives alone with his cats in a dingy Romanian apartment block. He rinks too much and is not well-liked by his neighbors. An unusual headache prompts him to self-medicate and finally to call for an ambulance. Everyone around him -- neighbors, ambulance drivers, doctors, medical technicians --is unsympathetic, barely competent or too caught up in person squabbles and ego games to pay attention to this rapidly sickening old man. The level of indifference to human suffering is always underplayed, but devastating nonetheless as Lazarescu is bounced from one overloaded hospital to another on the night of a fatal multi-car pileup.
"Death of" functions as an anti-parable about what happens when cultures lose empathy. The strong survive and the old, sick and disconnected are disposed of -- kindly, unintentionally but efficiently nonetheless. Though he film has a few running "gags" -- repeated disgust by caregivers at their patient's drinking habit -- the action is portrayed realistically, like an episode of COPS focusing on paramedics.
Kudos to the entire cast and to the writers for mostly keeping the scenarios and characters believable. Special kudos to Ion Fiscuteanu for his realistic portrayal of a man slowly sinking into the depths of illness. His deepening inability to express himself was tragi-comic and convincing, not an easy task. A DVD extra had an American doctor giving a silly 'It could not happen here" speech. Anyone who has experienced the US healthcare system -- with its focus on profit, time-efficiency and patient-free metrics -- would see that our system has more than its share of shortcomings.
While perhaps an exaggeration of the way medicine is practiced in Romania and elsewhere, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" will leave an indelible imprint in your mind.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a sadly funny film that tells the story of an old man whom no one really knows or cares about. When he falls ill and needs medical treatment, he faces a team of busy doctors who are concerned because they have to be, not because they really care. Running just over 2-1/2 hours, this Romanian film allows the viewer to visualize how suffocatingly slow time must seem for Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu), who isn't expecting the best treatment--just any treatment would be nice. With the exception of a conscientious paramedic, there doesn't seem to be much concern whether he lives or dies. TV viewers have been weaned on medical dramas such as ER, Chicago Hope, and House--all of which depict physicians who will go to all lengths to cure their patients. While noble and entertaining, these series probably offer less realism than The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, in which lack of funds and staff don't allow time for suitable bedside manner. No one is vilified, not even some of the hospital staff that is disgusted by the side effects of their patients' illnesses. The story is well told in a humane and mesmerizing manner that yanks at the heartstrings while still eliciting a laugh or two. --Jae-Ha Kim
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