Call me a simpleton, but this movie BORING

Fine, so he didn't like the film, doesn't change the fact that I don't believe he gave the film a chance! How is that a load of crap? Most people won't see the beautiful observations Puiu makes in the film and most people don't care! Does that mean Puiu shouldn't have made this film and that other directors who create more contemplative cinema shouldn't make this film?

I'll tell you straight away, even I had trouble with the film at first! Where's this going? Not much is happening, but once you settle into the film's tempo, it starts revealing itself. I just find it very sad that people would dismiss such an original film so quickly... Even you gave up after 90m minutes.

That's fine, you're allowed... but I still find that both of you took the easy way out.

Leggenden,

How many Romanian films have you seen that have the guts to provide a scathing critique of cold indifference and bureaucratism in Romania with that level of realism and candor?

I was completely engrossed. This is a comment on humanity, not just Romania. You can be sure it happens here in the US, too:-( I thought it was subtle..if you were really paying attention you could see him starting to lose his reality. Remember, he was talking coherently to his cats in the beginning. And his neighbor called him an intellectual, meaning he was considered intelligent. Very medically accurate, too. Sigh. The nurse was brilliant. The exhaustion of the ER crew was spot on. I, too, was confused about the end, trying to maintain some hope, until I remembered the title.

you think i'm looking down on him because his attention span is short. actually, i couldn't care less. i'm attacking him because he dared to condemn a movie after watching 15 (yes, fifteen - check his post) minutes of it. does sleeping through a movie make his opinion about it valid?

actually, my suggestion of spiderman 3 is valid. something new happens there every 5 seconds, so he won't have time to fall asleep. and perhaps such movies are the ones that make people expect a lot of action and stops them from thinking.

to be honest, i felt the same way for the first half hour to fourty five minutes. it dragged and i conjured an idea in my head of what the rest of the film was going to be like and considering its two and a half hour length i was more then ready to switch it off. i dont like long boring arty films and i was already making comparisons to gus van sant and terrence malik, having sat through elephant and the new world, both movies which i found incredibly boring and truly pointless. but for some inexplicable reason i was compelled to keep watching and i've never had a film compel me to keep watching regardless of my bleak preconceptions. it was worth it. although very hard to get into, the film was pretty damned good. it got better the more i got into it, and the more i got into it the more emotion i felt. anger at the self rightous doctors and sympathy towards mr lazarescu and the underappreciated medics who accompanied him. i got pretty wrapped up in it all. although i found the attitudes of some doctors slightly too uncaring and demeaning to be fully realistic, it didnt subtract from the experience. and i certainly wouldn't label this a comedy. the dark comic lines were not spoken as comedy but rather conversation spawned from defense and coping mechanisms of tired, wornout, despirited, semi faithless and quasi broken people which is something everyone can relate to. anyone who says they dont feel that way from time to time is in denial. in closing i can fully understand why people find this movie boring and slow because in certain respects it is boring and slow. but if you have the patience to hang in there and allow yourself to get involved you could be in for a pleasant surprise.

I was disappointed mostly because all over the DVD this is marketed as "the most acclaimed comedy of the year" and "hilarious". Then the first 20 minutes hes wandering around his flat coughing up blood and being miserable. This is false advertisement and I wasn't in the mood for a SLOW art movie.
And it's so typical of snobs to say "Oh America is so impatient, cant appreciate beauty and poignant social critiques go watch some crap Michael Bay movies". Thats elitist crap when the OP clearly gave this movie several chances and the movie failed to be engaging at all in the first 20 minutes. I like slow art movies sometimes like Tsai Ming-liang for example.
But while I'll take peoples words for it that the movie picks up 45 minutes into it, the opinion that it could have done a better job at being more engaging in the first 20 minutes so as not to alienate potential indie viewers is just as valid as the opinion that the it was a great movie all the way through.
One persons opinion is not more important than anothers I dont know why Im going thru all this effort to say this becuz I feel Im wasting my time trying to argue on IMDB . Anyway this rant is over bye!