MovieChat Forums > Moartea domnului Lazarescu (2005) Discussion > OK, what's that lame ending?!

OK, what's that lame ending?!

posted 19 years ago by veo
38 replies | jump to latest

I simply loved the movie, it's a movie we (Romanians) have been expecting for years, but... what the hell was that ending?!
Oh, of course, I can understand the director (I respect and applaud and envy him!) wanted to:
- make sure you are frustrated as a result of the movie, because a movie that makes you feel something, be it anger or happinness, is a good movie. But what happens in the film makes you mad enough - so there was no need to artificially add to the viewer's anger by ruining the climax. Or let's put it in another way: if you're not angered by Romanian doctors at the end of the movie (which is good), the ending will just make you mad at the director (which is bad).
- look good for the critics, which are well known to reject simple rewards of film-seeing, such as coherence and an logical ending ("if it doesn't respect the climax, it's definitely art"). But that's only encouraging the critics!... (just kidding)
- tell us Lazarescu was already dead because he had been left alone by everybody (his daughter, neighbors, health department etc) so that was the REAL death of Mr Lazarescu... Well, duh!, man, we had already understood that!

So - what the hell was that ending?! Enlighten me, please.

Oh, lieutenant, your men are already dead.

[–] bloovee 18 years ago

Puiu: "This cut may appear perverse to a certain kind of audience—though not to everyone I have encountered. I have met some people have told me this is the best cut of the film."

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/ma06/cristipuiu.htm

[–] plupu66 18 years ago

The (open) ending was perfect. Being more specific would have spoiled it. It leaves a whole range of parallel universes available. Dare make your own ending - or become at peace with the fact that there is no more to be said. I read somewhere that at death man is unhappy because he leaves the world unfinished.

[–] raineater777 18 years ago

The main idea of the film was not even Lazarescu. Names ending in "escu" ar every common here, so mr. LazarESCU could have been anybody, even from the viewers. The whole movie was about the situation, the main character didn't matter, he was just a tool to get the message across and therefor it didn't really matter whether he lived or he died.
That's one of the approaches i can think of and that made me accept the ending as it is.
So it's a "situation" film not a "character development" film (where you should know about the character/s and what happens to them till the end). The long tiresome road he takes to death is important, that road is the whole movie.

[–] MickeyDobbin 18 years ago

Lame...

wow, such a technical cinematic term.

People who dont like this movie or dont get the ending just dont get the simple idea that a film can be anything, do anything, it doesnt have to follow any rules or adhere to any specific style even if Hollywood demands it. When I was watching this movie I thought John Cassavetes was alive and making films in Romania

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"An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one."
-Charles Horton Cooley,

[–] mrura 18 years ago

i'm gonna say what's been said a million times, but since i've never said it, i'm allowed to say it once here.

why, oh why, do people who have no appreciation of a non-hollywood type movie, go to see a movie like this? what in the world possesses them? i can only assume it was an accident -- like they walked into the wrong theatre.

this ending is NO different then a hundred GREAT indie or foreign movies that don't cave in to the needs of the simple-minded masses.

it's a perfect ending to a truly great movie.

and regardless of what you may think, i'm not being pretentious. you just haven't watched enough good movies. read some of these threads. THINK about what people are saying. stop thinking about movies the way you've been trained to think about them your entire life. eventually, with a little luck, you will come to realize that these types of endings are so much richer, more interesting, and more respectful of an intelligent, thinking man's mind.

[–] kosovo1389 18 years ago

The ending was fitting.

It was a great film, and I hated every single second of it. I'm not Romanian, but I'm from the former Yugoslavia, and except for the language I felt like I was watching a domestic film. The saddest part of the film to me was the fact that his daughter Bianca barely speaks to him. The older generation in Eastern Europe is leading an increasingly lonely existance. It wasn't just a commentary on the health system.

- It is the exception that confirms the rule -

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Kammurabi 18 years ago

Well it was about 4 am when this movie ended when I watched...but I got something different from the end that others did.

Maybe I half imagined the end and it seemed touching and fitting to me.

The final seconds he is lying flat then sort of leans on his side briefly then lies back flat again, dies, black screen and credits roll with the song.

When he was leaning over for those couple of seconds, I think he may have gone "pss pss" which to me is an echo back to when he was lying down on the couch, very ill after vomiting the blood and he calls "pss pss" to one of his cats.

I think as he was dying, he may have imagined his cats there and called out to them. They were really the only companions he cared about at that point in his life.

Maybe I am wrong, but it is my interpretation anyway.

.

[–] psdhart 15 years ago

That reminds me of the film poster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PosterLazarescu.jpg

[–] agnieszka01 13 years ago

I don't agree at all. I liked the realism of the movie and its lack of manufactured drama. The drama was in the underlying horror and sadness of it all. As for the ending, I think it was just right. They showed Mr. Lazarescu waking up just as the nurse has called the doctor in, after stating that she has no time to deal with him. Lazarescu looks around. I was left wondering if perhaps he was granted a final moment of clarity. It was a sort of "this is it?" moment. He was about to go under for serious surgery (perhaps never to recover, if we're to believe the title). He was dying alone, with no wife (dead), neighbor (couldn't be bothered to accompany him), sister (not coming til tomorrow), child (in Canada) or even ambulance nurse (finally departed after a long exhausting night). He was cold and alone in a hospital bed at three in the morning. After being shuffled around from one bureaucratic hospital staff to another, he finally found one with the resources and willingness to treat him. And that was probably the end for him. It's sad in its reflection on reality (it was based on a case in Romania where a man was rejected by five hospitals, later to be abandoned and left for dead in the street by the ambulance workers). I thought it was profound that he was having this moment of perhaps realizing how empty and lonely it is in the end. No loved ones to hold his hands as he passes on into nothingness. No beautiful sunset to watch. Just a cold and indifferent voice shouting from another room, and a cart full of shaving paraphenalia next to his bed.

[–] hilaryjrp 13 years ago

@agnieska--

I agree that this film is possibly one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life. From his love of his cats, to the nurse's kindness, to the brutal reality of the script (real-life, as you mention): the only recent movie I can compare to this is one from Korea called "Poetry," about an old woman in less urgent but similar plight.

Truly, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a masterpiece.

[–] Anscules 9 years ago

I thought the ending was fine and expected it, more or less, to be that way. This film is like a great novel, and just like in great novels, the authors normally disallow the audience the visualization of death in the end: if it is inevitable, why show it?

Some related examples of works that don't need to show us what's next:

Kafka's Metamorphosis
Camus' The Stranger, as well as "The Guest"
Updike's "A&P"
Cheever's "The Swimmer"
Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms & The Sun Also Rises
Most of Flannery O'Connor's stuff

"Rampart: Squad 51."

[–] prplayer 8 years ago

the ending was exactly how i wanted it to be

so many movies, so little time