The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Romania, 2006)

Romanian director Cristi Puiu has put up a film that is slow and difficult to sit through, but the realisitc effect is remarquable. We follow in real-time Mr. Lazarescu's journey to four different hospitals in the capital Bucharest. It all starts with a small pain, a neighbour calls the ambulance and before you can say "hospital", the ambulance nurse takes him to the first hospital, where bureaucracy, indifference and inefficiency are more than evident. He is taken to a second, and then a third hospital, until finally, arriving at the fourth one at 3am, he is admitted for an emergency operation, after having started his journey at 10pm! In the movie we do not see if he dies or not, the ending being quite abrupt. But we know for certain that anyone needing an emergency treatment in Bucharest will better think twice next time they decide to go to a public hospital.