The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

Moartea domnului Lăzărescu

A black comedy with serious side effects.

After suffering terrible headaches and stomach cramps, Mr. Lăzărescu, a lonely 63 year-old man, calls for an ambulance, beginning one man’s hellish journey through Bucharest hospitals in search of proper medical care. As the night unfolds, his health starts to deteriorate fast.

Date of release
2005-05-27
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (207)
Runtime
2h 34m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
Cristi Puiu

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 3

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a 2005 Romanian black comedy film co-written and directed by Cristi Puiu. In the film a middle-aged man is carried by an ambulance from hospital to hospital all night long, as doctors keep refusing to treat him and send him away.

Production

According to Cristi Puiu, he started work on the film after being frustrated by unsuccessfully trying to get grants from the National Council of Cinematography (CNC), a Romanian public institution which is the main provider of financing for filmmaking in Romania.

Between 2001 and 2003, Cristi Puiu suffered from stress and an exaggerated fear of relatively minor ailments; as a result of his hypochondria, he frequently sought medical help. Although he learned that he was suffering from stress and a common form of colitis, Puiu became convinced that he had a terminal disease.

In addition, the filmmaker knew of a notorious Romanian case in 1997 of Constantin Nica, a 52-year-old man who, after being sent away from several hospitals, was left in the street by the paramedics and died.

After finishing the synopsis for the six films in Six Stories from the Outskirts of Bucharest, Cristi Puiu showed them to Răzvan Rădulescu, a writer and screenwriter who collaborated with Puiu on writing Stuff and Dough (2001) and Lucian Pintilie's Niki and Flo (2003). They started researching The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu by going to various doctors and hospitals, then completed the screenplay.

The filming was accomplished over 39 nights, in November–December 2004. Because the film was finished late in the year, the crew worked hard to complete it in time for 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film was completed on an overall budget of €350,000. To produce this film, Cristi Puiu started his own production company, Mandragora, together with his wife and Alexandru Munteanu, the executive producer of The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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