The premise of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (a Romanian film available online in its entirety in two parts on youtube) is so simple and so elemental that there are barely a handful of film makers on the planet who would have the guts to tackle it: an old man suffers, slowly, interminably, by excruciating degrees, in practically real time (no editing) over the course of a single hellish night. Along the way he is taken by ambulance to one hospital after another, to be shunted aside and passed over by one distracted or indifferent doctor after another. The system is underfunded and overburdened and there simply arent enough beds, enough CT machines, enough doctors to allow him the kind of dignity we ourselves would want. The bold simplicity of the film extends to its form. This is, in the main, a long take film, with minimal editing. One of the great advantages of a long take aesthetic is the way it forces the fewer to experience the diegetic time of the story. We are with the characters psychologically because we are literally experiencing the same moment by moment reality, the same immediate stream of experiences. The reality, in this case, as going to hospitals and doctors almost always involves, is mostly waiting. We are forced to be there with Mr. Lazarescu, to be with his mounting anxiety and worry, his pain and humiliation, his steadily declining lucidity and incompetence, and we are made to be with him second by second. The first hour of the film, which is completely in real time, is admittedly slow going. We are introduced to Mr. Lazarescu in his apartment with his cats, his television, and his liquor. Not feeling well, he calls the ambulance, but they dont come. Unable to rest, he asks his neighbors for a pain killer. They are skeptical (has he been drinking again?), but feel obligated to help where they can. Finally they call the ambulance themselves. At this point, a new character is introduced, the paramedic Mioara Avram, played by the wonderful actor Luminita Gheorghiu. She will become Mr. Lazarescus somewhat reluctant guardian, as she tries to protect and advocate for him, all the while being patronized and insulted by arrogant superiors. The films appeal is finally grounded her quiet, reassuring presence, the sense of harried human decency she radiates. Some of the most memorable sections of the film show doctors putting Mr. Lazarescu through a repetitive battery of questions and forms, a scene that is repeated each time he is kicked out of one hospital and taken to be admitted to another. Each time he is denied and has to go through the whole thing again, and each time hes less aware, less competent to make decisions. By the time he finally finds a doctor who seems willing to offer him help, meaning surgery, hes no longer able to speak lucidly, let alone make decisions, which makes the ultimate outcome of the encounter, that he refuses to sign the disclaimer form and is turned away yet again, all the more devastating. No fiction film has ever been made with greater authenticity. There are no messages, no big speeches, just the feeling of a world, complete and entire, a universe of mute and enigmatic objects and the ripple of physical experience as we move through it, the sense of life unfolding before our eyes. It captures something that is ignored about our culture as well. By and large we are a culture that handles the business of dying in hospitals. This has not been the experience of most human beings who have lived throughout history by and large; it is still not the experience of people who live in the country, or in remote areas, far from the big cities. There are still places, even in America, where dying is done at home, in bed, surrounded by your friends and family, rather than under the cold glare of institutional fluorescent lights, surrounded by forms and medical equipment and strangers. Its possible that future generations will look back on how our culture handles death and find it crazy or weird or nonsensical, in which case theyll have to rely on movies like this one to tell them what it was like. As a record of what it is to be alive right now, what it is to die right now, a picture of who we are as people and as a culture, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is superlative and disquieting. https://youtube/watch?v=RZyHZTJnfT8&feature=share
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:56:36 +0000
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