Lazarescu is a movie that begins and ends in the middle of things, and focuses on the last day of a man's life as both his health and his familiar surroundings slowly decline. We open to see an ill-feeling Dante Lazarescu who, after feeding his cats, decides to call an ambulance to aid with his headache and stomach pain. We learn from the phone conversation that Lazarescu has had an ulcer surgery 14 years ago, that he drinks copiously (much to the dismay of the people on the other end of the line), and that he clearly needs some form of help (judging by the etched lines of pain in Lazarescu's face, and his fits of vomiting).
With the help of his neighbors, a paramedic arrives. At first, she is fairly indifferent, and attributes Lazarescu's problems to his drinking. She starts suspecting a more serious issue is at hand with his health, however, after witnessing his condition, and decides to take him to the hospital.
Thus begins a night of medical red tape and doctor-patient conflicts for Lazarescu and the paramedic. They get shuttled from hospital to hospital, in part because of a serious bus accident eating away at all available hospital resources, and in part because no one wants to deal with an apparent drunkard who just needs to sleep things off. As Lazarescu moves from doctor to doctor, we slowly learn that his condition is quite serious, and we watch him deteriorate to the point of needing emergency surgery. At which, the movie, rather abruptly, ends.
Death is certainly a main theme of the movie. The entire movie takes place at night, with on-again off-again rain smattering the windshield of the ambulance that Lazarescu and the paramedic use to drive from hospital to hospital. We witness the horrible aftermath of the bus accident as patients are shuttled through the hospital hallways. We learn that Lazarescu's wife has died several years earlier of cancer. And, we witness Lazarescu's own decline into apparent death.
However, another theme is the sarcasm of the modern medical profession, and the attitudes and behaviors between doctor and patient, and doctor and non-MD medical staff. We witness the paramedic initially being indifferent to Lazarescu and assuming he's just a drunkard having a bad night. But as she suspects something more serious is at hand, she becomes the voice of Lazarescu to the various doctors she encounters. The doctors are constant skeptics, and they purvey a caste system of "doctor knows right", despite the fact that the paramedic has been with Lazarescu all night and has a history with him (and with prior doctors). The doctors are portrayed very negatively in this movie, with their attention spent mostly on moving people through the medical machinery, making personal phone calls, and fetching food. I could hear the audience utter frustrated sighs as we witnessed doctor after doctor trying to hand off Lazarescu to someone else rather than really focus on him, his condition, and his history like you would expect a doctor to do.
Visually, the style of this movie is similar to a documentary, with most of the camera work appearing to be hand-held. However, the lines are clearly scripted, with actors rarely interrupting each other or being at a loss for words as a "real" documentary would portray. Still, the movie does an effective job of capturing the moment without intruding into it, and without trying to be overly poetic or romantic about the situation (music is almost completely devoid from the movie, save for opening and closing credits and an ambient television here or there). Lazarescu isn't a feel-good movie and doesn't have a clear beginning-middle-end that a traditional story-arced film would, but it's nevertheless worth a viewing, if only to contrast those forms of filmmaking with an interesting alternative.
Overall rating: 6.5 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 153m
Country: Romania
Language: Romanian
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