All great films exist somewhere on a continuum between pure entertainment and pure art. Entertainment is often achieved through production values other than the essential triad of writer/director/actor. Art requires little else. Entertainment passes through us, leaving no mark. Art changes us.
If you make your stand solidly in the entertainment camp, skip The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. It's the tale of the last hours of an unloved and unkempt alcoholic, trying to get care for his headache and stomach-ache at a series of Bucharest hospitals. There is no music and almost no editing. Indeed, there is barely any "camerawork," in that the camera hardly moves through many long scenes. There will be no Oscars for makeup or costume. What there is, is a story that will rip your heart out, one tiny piece at a time.
Art-lovers, writer-director Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" is not to be missed. It is difficult to watch. Chicago Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips notes "It is also more grueling in some stretches than anything in "United 93." But, as with those who bite off a big chunk of suffering in this lifetime so as to make real headway, those who stick with "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" will be rewarded.
Why are art films so often a downer? Carl Gustav Jung had a good answer: "There is no coming to consciousness without pain."
The writing and dialogue bring verisimilitude to new heights. It is hard, after a while, to remember that this is a movie, not a documentary. People make conversation in ways we've heard a thousand times, in ways that have nothing to do with the "plot" per se. There is great art in its seeming artlessness.
Like Paul Greengrass, writer-director of United 93, Cristi Puiu is afforded exceptional artistic latitude, simply because we know from the get-go that the outcome will be dire. What might have seemed tedious--the endless humiliations suffered by Mr. Lazarescu--become instead the tableau of a dying man, and the events that killed him.
The acting, writing and directing are uniformly superb. There are no super-villains or super-heroes. We see the ordinary coldness of the human heart, and its lethal consequences. I didn't know how long the movie was when I started it, but once it began, I never thought about the time. There was no thought but to stay with Mr. Lazarescu, to see it through, and to hope (despite the movie's title) that he would get help in time.
What others had to say
Peter Rainier, Christian Science Monitor: ...heartbreakingly powerful masterpiece that affected me far more deeply than any other film I've seen all year.
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: a stunner, so hypnotic that the length hardly matters
Ken Fox, TV Guide: It's full of humor, pathos and a deep humanism that comes as a warm blast in this age of lifeless, cinematic junk.
Ethan Alter, Premiere Magazine: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is never anything less than wholly engrossing.
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