THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU

Mr Lăzărescu is 63, lives alone in Bucharest, drinks, and on this Saturday evening has a headache and cramps in his stomach. He calls an ambulance. It is a bad night for it: a bus accident has filled the city’s hospitals. A paramedic takes him along and stays with him as he is driven from one clinic to the next – no doctor is willing to operate on him, no one agrees on a diagnosis, and the longer the night lasts, the less able he is to speak for himself. “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” is the first feature by the Romanian Cristi Puiu, from 2005.

Puiu shoots with a handheld camera in long takes, so that the night seems to pass in real time; at the same time the film is precisely written and acted. It is deeply rooted in the Romanian present after Ceaușescu. In Cannes it won the Un Certain Regard prize in 2005 and made the Romanian New Wave visible internationally. “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2006.

Shown at the 2006 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2006 · Film Archive