The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

Hailed as one of the defining works of twenty-first-century cinema thus far, Cristi Puiu’s unflinching, darkly comic bureaucratic nightmare heralded the arrival of the Romanian New Wave as a major cinematic force. Suffering from severe headaches, cantankerous alcoholic Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) finds himself shuttled from hospital to hospital, as each doctor he sees refuses to treat him and no one can agree on a diagnosis. As the indignities and everyday absurdities pile up, Puiu transforms a seemingly modest human drama into a devastating indictment of institutional indifference.