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Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The
Tartan USA


8.1

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 24 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language and brief nudity

Starring Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu, Gabriel Spahiu, Doru Ana, Dana Dogaru, Florin Zamfirescu, Clara Voda, and Adrian Titieni

Anyone who has waited for treatment in an emergency room or chafed under the less than devoted care of a disinterested doctor will recognize Mr. Lazarescu's dilemma. A 60-ish widower, living alone in Bucharest with his cats, he feels sick enough one evening to call an ambulance. This is the beginning of his Dantesque odyssey deep into the bowels of a big city medical establishment. It's a story that could take place anywhere and Mr. Lazarescu could be your next-door neighbor – or he could be you. (Tartan Films)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Cristi Puiu Razvan Radulescu
DIRECTED BY:	Cristi Puiu
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: September 12, 2006 Theatrical: April 26, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	154 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Romania
LANGUAGE(S):	Romanian (with English subtitles)

Original title "Moartea Domnului Lazarescu"; Un Certain Regard Award, 2005 Cannes Film Festival; Nominated, Best Foreign Film (Romania), 2006 Independent Spirit Awards

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Mr. Lazarescu is that rich and riveting a film of universal small human moments and big-system failure.

100

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Both sad and darkly funny, the film is so sharply conceived and richly populated that it often registers like a Frederick Wiseman documentary, even though everything is scripted and every part played by a professional... This is only the second feature of Cristi Puiu, who claims to have been inspired by his own hypochondria, but he's already clearly a master.

100

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

A heartbreakingly powerful masterpiece.

100

Premiere Ethan Alter

Never anything less than wholly engrossing. There's a lot of humor to be found here (primarily of the dark comedy variety) and the cumulative impact of Lazarescu's journey through the Bucharest medical system is quite powerful.

100

TV Guide Ken Fox

It's full of humor, pathos and a deep humanism that comes as a warm blast in this age of lifeless, cinematic junk.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It is a black comedy, among the blackest. It is also more grueling in some stretches than anything in "United 93."

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Like "United 93" and the work of the Dardenne brothers, it lives entirely in the moment, seeing what happens as it happens, drawing no conclusions, making no speeches, creating no artificial dramatic conflicts, just showing people living one moment after another, as they must.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

The movie is a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu runs the same 2 1/2 hours as "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," but what a difference a comic-dramatic purpose makes.

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Devastating, uncompromising and riveting.

100

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A watchful, winding-down tragedy of a movie that delivers what it promises. As commentary, it's grim. As filmmaking, it's a powerfully disturbing odyssey through the Bucharest health care system.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

An intoxicating performance piece in which skilled actors pinball off each other with such energy and nuance that the audience almost forgets about the dying man on the edge of the frame. The style alone makes the movie's point.

Newsweek David Ansen

Puiu's is the art of the seemingly artless: he takes a story that's utterly unglamorous and mundane, and transforms it into something mythic.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Almost as exhilarating as it is depressing. Puiu's filmmaking technique is remarkable, and all the more so because it's almost invisible.

Variety Jay Weissberg

Picture's dour take on the dehumanizing process of medical treatment is leavened by black humor and dialogue that always rings true.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

An explicit ode to mortality, not without a certain grim humor.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

By recording this all too commonplace and dehumanizing process, Puiu's film shows the sick old man and the strangers who deal with him to be all too human - extraordinarily so.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

A thorny masterpiece.

The New Yorker David Denby

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, for all its terrible matter-of-factness, produces tumultuous feelings of amazement and revolt.

Empire David Parkinson

Long, but engrossing and frequently enraging drama that not only exposes the flaws in the Romanian health service, but also in modern humanity.

Washington Post Philip Kennicott

It's long, but it's also very real and worth every minute.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

This Romanian movie defies categorization--it's halfway between a black comedy and a Fred Wiseman documentary. And it haunts you like the ghost of any dead person you've ever ignored.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Unlike the zippy American medical dramas it apes, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is paid out with the deliberate slowness of a dray horse straining up a mountain path. With every painstaking turn of the screw that seals Lazarescu's sorry fate, Puiu flirts with tedium, but tedium is the point of this hyperrealist tale, paced in what feels like real time.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Though it is undeniably bleak and pessimistic and marked by a texture of observation worthy of British director Mike Leigh, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is not as forbidding as it sounds.

Film Threat Phil Hall

Do not, under any circumstance, approach this film lightly. Prepare to be depressed, agitated and shocked. And prepare to see a brilliant work of cinematic art.

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

In this deep probe into modern-day medicine, the old guy is shuttled from hospital to hospital in a surreal, horrifying ordeal of errors, missed diagnoses and institutional malaise. At two hours and 34 minutes, we, seemingly, also endure his agony -- part of this Romanian film's power and, also, its Achilles heel.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is hopelessly depressing. Yet as a story of the callous impersonalization we inflict upon one another, the film is timeless.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

If Lazarescu's experience is typical in the former Soviet bloc, democracy hasn't done much to humanize the bureaucracy.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Needlessly long, visually drab and not just a foreign-language film, with English subtitles, but a film that's ostensibly foreign to our experience. That said, there are compelling reasons to see it.

New York Post Kyle Smith

It's supposed to be about a Kafkaesque experience. Instead, it IS a Kafkaesque experience. Why are we here? Is everything absurd? Is anyone in charge?

The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Rory P. gave it a9:
Excellent. No doubt about it. Me being a conventional lad, I did find the 'naturalistic' pace a bit head wrecking for the first 20 minutes. After that I gave into it and found the whole thing an extremely rewarding experience. very real and moving. The best film I've seen in a long time.

Jamie B gave it a1:
Never before have I ever wished death on anyone, but by the end of this film I just wanted Mr Lazarescu to die. Perhaps that was the point. To be honest though if I had wanted to torture myself I would have stubbed cigarettes out on my hand in preference to watching this film.

Gabriel S. gave it a9:
This movie was made in 2004, 15 years through Romania's painful transition to free-market economy and all that the 'west' brings with it. Attitudes - so Romanians, in their devoidness of showy love as most westerners are used to - are both bleak and humane and I liked the way Cristi Puiu portrayed that naturalness. Top film. Bitter, but good medicine for the soul.

Bogdan P. gave it a10:
The drama on the screen is no more powerful than the real drama. Yet the true power of the movie is that it portrays reality as no one believes it could be. Deeply human. Sad nonetheless.

Jason K. gave it a1:
The most depresssing film I've seen in years, it made me feel ill. Why on earth does it get such a high rating?

Craig S. gave it a10:
Best statement on humanity or lack of humanity that I've seen. It will help turn most viewers into beings who care more for each other.

Jennifer M. gave it a6:
I, too, didn't get the humour in it. I found it painfully realistic and bleak. Great performances and highly original though.

Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The Tartan USA

Death of Mr. Lazarescu, The
Tartan USA