Moartea domnului Lãzãrescu (original title)
Written by: Cristi Puiu, Razvan Radulescu
Directed by: Cristi Puiu
Starring: Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu, Doru Ana
Rated: R
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it. Read my previous movie reviews!
Plot
In this Romanian langauge movie, Mr. Lazarescu is carried by an ambulance from hospital to hospital all night long, as doctors keep refusing to treat him and send him away.
Verdict
Never stooping to manipulation, this feels like a documentary. It follows Lazarescu as he tries to get surgery. Being an old drunk, doctors refuse to treat him. The movie highlights the bias of the medical system and more than a couple egotistical doctors through a depressing journey that just gets worse.
This is more of a film buff movie, and it certainly isn't a happy movie.
It depends.
Review
The movie answers the question of why people don't want to go to hospitals. It's not a happy experience, and in Lazarescu's case he gets mistreated. Doctors would rather tell him what he should have done than tell him what's wrong with him. If you don't take care of yourself, doctors don't want to help you, at least that's the movie's depiction.
Lazarescu experiences everything that could possibly go wrong. He didn't even want to go to the hospital, but when his pain becomes unbearable he calls the ambulance.
Later his neighbors call when still no ambulance has arrived. When he finally gets to the hospital the doctor prefers to criticize rather than treat. The doctor's ego is huge, mistreating the EMT who is the only person that genuinely cares about the old man. Not even the family can claim that.
Everyone the EMT and Lazarescu encounter is disinterested. They seem to be annoyed they even have a patient, often being downright hostile. The EMT is derided multiple times because she's just an EMT and not a doctor. While it doesn't matter much, she is vindicated, her original diagnosis proving accurate. Though that doesn't happen until the fourth hospital. Lazarescu gets progressively worse throughout the night, nearly incoherent by the time he finally has surgery.
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