Truly Dreadful Film

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I really don't understand how this movie won so many awards. It's below mediocre and when I'm saying this I'm considering the standards in romanian cinema, which are pretty low. I must say that I don't sympathize at all with Lazarescu, although the director almost forces this sympathy on the viewers, while accusing the medical system for... for what? From what I can tell everyone treated him fairly nice, given the context with that accident and the fact that he's just one among many others (and some of them with more urgent problems). And speaking about that accident... in the beginning of the movie, when Lazarescu is still at home, at tv the reporter mentions this accident telling there are 7 deaths and 29 injured. You know how much time passed since the reporter started this news until Lazarescu's neighbour turned off the tv? 20 seconds! People die every day all across the globe from a variety of reasons. Do we care? No we don't! So Lazarescu died... SO WHAT?!Leaving the ugly topic aside, the movie is made in a very amateurish way. Yes, I understand that realism plays a big part, but why don't make a documentary, label it as a documentary so it can be viewed by the people who are really interested in the topic, and save us 2 and a half hours of waiting for that guy to finally die? An over-rated movie who suffers of the same curse which seems to be the plague of romanian cinema... realism. At least if it was some kind of artsy realism or if it had an important message to transmit, but it doesn't.

The noughties has offered up another masterpiece. They are rare in this decade, yet here is another one. Very realistic film which follows a man who is suffering terrible pains in his head and stomach, moving by ambulance from his dingy flat to hospital after hospital in Romania, each one providing a different diagnosis and refusing his entry due to lack of space. Highly recommended! I should add, while it describes itself as a dark comedy drama, it isn't obviously funny (filled with gags or jokes) but incredibly subtle. Despite the depressing situation on screen I somehow wasn't feeling down. There is a satirical bite to this film which one may not notice but is prevalent throughout. The close tracking camera and tightness of the frame truly make you feel like you are sitting beside Lazarescu as he trundles along on his depressing and painful journey. Very moving experience.

This movie took awhile to get going. I was worried for several long minutes that I'd wasted my time and money renting it. Eventually, I got totally wrapped up in Mr. Lazarescu and his troubles and his helpers. It's a sad story about an alcoholic who is shunted from hospital to hospital with a seemingly minor problem. It's not that the health care workers don't care; the ambulance crew clearly does. It's just a lot of overburdened workers with problems of their own. The movie is done as if it were a documentary or reality TV show, and you really lose yourself in the story.SPOILERS:It's an absorbing movie, and the end is somewhat ambiguous. The version I saw had a key scene truncated to that it's not clear that he died. The scene was cut, but the sound was left in, so you're left with a black screen. The missing visual is the camera retreating from the view of Mr. Lazarescu's back - we're left seeing his body on the bed.

This film is about Mr Lazarescu, who is a lonely alcoholic who does not take good care of himself, and his struggle to get medical help in the capital of Romania.From the beginning, we see that Mr Lazarescu was arguing on the phone, indicating that his health was quite OK. However, his health quickly turned for the worse, with headache and abdominal pain.After finally making it to the hospital (and it was 50 minutes into the film), he got no sympathy from the doctors. He got dismissed to another hospital. From this moment, we already see that how judgmental people are. The society does not value the drunk people. They get second class treatment, if any at all. The film brutally reflects how the society treats the alcoholics by stereotyping them and ignoring their needs.In the second hospital, he was already showing neurological signs. I didn't expect this, as I (and the doctors in the film) thought his headache was due to him being drunk. He got sent away again, and when he reached the third hospital, he was in critical condition. Because of a silly ego trip the doctor had with the ambulance woman, Mr Lazarescu was denied emergency treatment. According to ethical principles, there is no need for consent for life saving treatments, and the doctor should know it. I think that this scene is used to portray how people bend the rules for their own convenience, no matter how unscrupulous it is.It was minimalistic and slow, but still there were many small bits and pieces that made me laugh. For example, the overly helpful neighbour's wife who kept trying to give food. And the wife's comment on how Mr Lazarescu's puke was different from her husband's puke because of the lack of sausages. And the ambulance woman's diagnosis of cancer, which seemed ridiculous at first, but became ghastly correct later in the film. And Mr Lazarescu's initial resistance to lie down and then later asked for permission to lie down. And the doctor's insistence to borrow a mobile phone charger. All these little things made me laugh. So yes, this film IS black comedy.Mr Lazarescu's acting was very impressive. He was able to portray a spectrum of mental state from being lucid to being confused. And as he became confused, I really felt sorry for him. It was also interesting that he insisted on calling himself using the Hungarian way (surname first), despite having a clearly Romanian surname. Though it was explained that he had a Hungarian wife, I felt this issue could have been explored further.The camera work was realistic and raw. I felt I was shadowing Mr Lazarescu's final hours, as if I was there in the flat, on the ambulance and in the hospital.I was also impressed by the facilities they have in the Romanian hospitals. They used good quality tourniquets, used vacuettes for blood taking, and had very fast labs for blood tests. Unfortunately the staff were less sympathetic.I found the film captivating. It felt a lot shorter than 2.5 hours!