Have you ever wondered how your last living day on earth will play out? Will you fade away in the arms of one you love? Will you be run over by a truck? Will you die from boredom in a home for old people? Or will your last day be, like Mr. Lazarescu´s, in the hands of a public system, that takes care of its own interests and not those it is supposed to help? This movie takes a "fly on the wall" point of view of the end of a mans life and lets you feel the psychopathic or apathetic mentality of the public workers, you know inhabit the welfare systems throughout the world.
There is not really much of a plot here and that is deliberate. Or maybe i should say, the plot is not that important compared to what is going on around him on his journey through the night. He does go from hospital to hospital until someone finally gets an idea of what might be wrong with him, but that is sort of a walking on the spot. Hi is inside the system now and he is just kicked around like an empty can nobody wants to take care of. He is met with prejudice, ignorance, arrogance, bureaucracy ... or just plain indifference. There is no real difference between this and a crematory. The welfare system has become a politically correct way of making sure that the little people die as fast as possible without being a burden to those who take advantage of this system by working there.
I have a big problem with the "comic" hype of the movie. This is not funny at all and the comic twist is a typical psychological trick to downplay importance in the face of power. It is a highly critical piece of art, that exposes the state for what it is and because it deals with the state, it has to be wrapped in humor. That is sad to me. It took me the two and a half hour to figure out, that the length of the movie and the repetition of the same kind of scenarios in each hospital is exactly what we need to experience to get annoyed about it. We need to feel, what all those unemphatic people he encounters, do not feel. You want to scream .. "come on, do something". Nobody sees a person, they are all absorbed in their own little narcissistic world. And then after the two and a half hours, it ends when he is practically drifted off, but still alive. We do not even get to see him go in peace or get well or anything. A very torturous way of ending. There is a clear reference to Dr. Strangelove in the Vera Lynn´esque song that accompanies the scrolling text at the end. I guess that is the attempt to humorise the story.
It grows on you but you have to be in the mood for it, because it is almost like therapy. Judged on its own premises i do not see any real weaknesses, but it is a bit of torture to watch. It is a brave comment on the nature of public "service" in general and quite elegant in its honest way of trying to present reality to us, whether we like it or not.
Rating: 8/10