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Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lazarescu is a starkly realistic drama that offers no hope, says
Vikramdeep Johal
Do you have relatives?" a doctor asks an ailing old man. "I have ulcer," comes the curt reply. This dialogue sums up The Death of Mr Lazarescu, a much-acclaimed tragic farce directed by Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu. The ending can be guessed from the title itself. However, what’s more significant is the protagonist’s final journey rather than the inevitable destination. Dante Remus Lazarescu (played unaffectedly by Ion Fiscuteanu) is an elderly widower living in a cramped Bucharest apartment with his three cats named Mirandolina, Nusu and Fritz. Feeling pain in his head and stomach, he calls up repeatedly for an ambulance. The prolonged wait makes him seek help from the next-door neighbours, who blame his heavy drinking for his condition. Finally, a team of paramedics arrives, led by nurse Mioara (Luminita Gheorghiu). She conjectures that Lazarescu’s illness could be very serious, and informs his sister, who lives in another city, to reach the hospital at the earliest. As the old man is hauled into the ambulance, he requests his neighbours to take care of the cats while he’s away. Little does he know that he would never see his pets again. The nightmarish ride lasts all night long, taking him from one hospital to another. At every place, he isn’t admitted for one reason or the other, be it staff shortage, lack of equipment or priority for "more serious" cases. The compassionate nurse tries to pitch in on Lazarescu’s behalf, but the doctors admonish her not to encroach on their authority. When the patient complains that his head is hurting, a doctor quips callously, "Good. It means you have one." There is no purgatory or paradise for this Dante — it’s a dreadful inferno all the way. The movie is reminiscent of Italian master Vittorio de Sica’s neo-realist classic Umberto D (1952), in which a retired civil servant has only a dog for company in his lonely old age. Living on a measly pension, he tries to avoid paying rent to his landlady by getting admitted to a hospital. He’s eventually forced to leave, but at least he is lucky enough to be reunited with his "companion", a solace that’s denied to Lazarescu. Labelled as "black comedy", The Death of Mr Lazarescu is actually a starkly realistic drama that offers no hope. It won the "Un certain regard" award at Cannes in 2005, besides being feted at international film festivals in Chicago, Reykjavik and Copenhagen. Now available on DVD, it is ideal remake material. Indeed, the hard-hitting story can easily be transposed from Romania to India, considering the common man’s ordeal in our government hospitals.
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