The following is provided as a public service for list-members in the
SF Bay area. I do not receive payments of any kind in the following
matter.

Coming to the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California:

FRI JUL 14 2006
7:30 	  	The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Cristi Puiu (Romania, 2005)

(Moartea Domnului Lazarescu). Rarely has trusting one's life to health
professionals seemed deadlier than in this sardonic Romanian comédie humaine
that's already won over thirty international prizes and been called “the most
remarkable film of the year” by the Village Voice. Living alone with his cats
and his alcohol, the elderly Dante Lazarescu experiences chest pain, and calls,
then waits, and waits, for an ambulance. So begins a long night's journey
through medical purgatory, in which our hapless protagonist is alternately
harangued, mocked, and (worst of all for a dying man) ignored by those
supposedly trying to save his life. Reminiscent of the fly-on-the-wall
observation of Frederick Wiseman and John Cassavetes' nuanced awareness of how
people talk to one another (or fail to), the film's quasidocumentary aesthetic
creates a realistic world made all the more believable through impeccably
detailed dialogue and a brilliant cast, not to mention current fears that those
in power, whether in the medical profession or elsewhere, have forgotten about
those whose lives depend on them.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is repeated on Sunday, July 16.

Jason Sanders

 Written by Puiu, Razvan Radulescu. Photographed by Oleg Mutu. With Ion
Fiscuteanu, Luminta Gheorghiu, Gabriel Spahiu, Doru Ana. (154 mins, In Romanian
with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Tartan Films) 

Info on PFA at:
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/calendar/index.html

PS not in Berkeley/SF, and want to see the film? Contact your local film
festival/society, ask them to consider screening it.

Thomas E. Billings