A mordant parable of and about our time as well as a poem of personal urban decay.
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05/06/06
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The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2006)
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Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:73
Fresh:68
Rotten:5
Average Rating:8/10
Consensus: Shot in naturalistic style, this is a powerful indictment of absurdity and indifference in the face of human suffering.
Theatrical Release:Apr 26, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Shot in Romania, THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU follows the title character as he waits for attention in a rundown hospital emergency ward. Fans of Lars Von Trier's THE KINGDOM should find much to love... [More]
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Reviews for The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Top CriticA film of universal small human moments and big-system failure.
05/06/06
Top CriticThis Romanian movie defies categorization -- it's halfway between a black comedy and a Fred Wiseman documentary. And it haunts you like the ghost of any dead person you've ever ignored.
05/05/06
Top CriticA sly anti-ER infused with implacable existential clarity that will send shivers up your spine.
05/04/06
...the cinematic equivalent of a shaggy-dog story: the inevitable, deliberately anticlimactic punchline is less important than the length to which the buildup is protracted.
05/04/06
Amid all the hospital byplay, there is a trenchant portrait of a people and their society.
05/03/06
Top CriticIt's rainy and dark as death in Bucharest in a tale of that last ride on Medicare.
05/02/06
It's one of those films where we root for almost everybody.
05/01/06
It's full of humor, pathos and a deep humanism that comes as a warm blast in this age of lifeless, cinematic junk.
04/28/06
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu would seem to give its plot away with its title. But, as the movie itself demonstrates, not everything is as it first seems.
04/28/06
Top Critic... dark and overlong drama ...
04/28/06
Top CriticThink of this Romanian import as the anti-E.R. -- no high drama, no kinetic editing and no caring, camera-ready doctors.
04/28/06
This stark, gritty Romanian import from co-writer/director Cristi Puiu isn't so much unsuccessful as it is excruciatingly dull.
04/28/06
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu takes aim at the grotesqueries of the hospital experience with killing accuracy, like a mallet blow to the knee that comes down harder than anticipated.
04/27/06
Top CriticAn intoxicating performance piece in which skilled actors pinball off each other with such energy and nuance that the audience almost forgets about the dying man on the edge of the frame.
04/27/06
It's supposed to be about a Kafkaesque experience. Instead, it is a Kafkaesque experience. Why are we here? Is everything absurd? Is anyone in charge?
04/26/06
Top CriticNot a line of the pungent dialogue is wasted. Beneath the quasi-documentary veneer lies a well-written screenplay.
04/25/06
The ailing title character in this thorny masterpiece by the Romanian director Cristi Puiu suffers a late-night descent through circles of medical hell.
04/25/06
Top Critica gentle parable of the delicacy of mortality
04/25/06
The most remarkable new movie to open in New York this spring.
04/25/06
Top CriticLatest News for The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
October 05, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Departed" Is Best Reviewed Wide Release of 2006
This week at the movies, we've got cops and robbers in Boston ("The Departed," starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon), chainsaw massacres in Texas... More...
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