"Lazarescu, Come Forth!": Cristi Puiu and the Miracle of Romanian Cinema (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu received Un certain regard at Cannes (2005), The Silver Orb Award (Alba Regia 2005), The Golden Tower (Palic 2005), The Grand Prix of the Jury at the International Copenhagen Film Festival (2005), Bayard d'Or for best film and best actress (Namur 2005), The London Critics Circle Film Award (Foreign Language Film of the Year, 2006), The Chicago International Film Festival Silver Hugo Special Jury Prize (2006), World Cinema Award, offered by BBC Four (2007). This impressive record is not singular; many of the directors belonging to the Romanian New Wave (1) have produced--often on low budget (Puiu's film costa mere 350,000 Euros) and in the absence of adequate infrastructure in the sequence of production, circulation and presentation--award-winning feature films that have impressed critics worldwide and that have been considered one of the most stimulating and promising developments in recent years in Eastern European national cinemas. (2) According to Puiu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (3) is part of a projected series entitled "Six Stories from the Outskirts of Bucharest," inspired by Eric Rohmer's Six contes moraux (Six Moral Tales). They are conceived as love stories--the love between a man and a woman, love for one's children, love of success, love between friends, and carnal love. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the first film of the series, is predicated on the ancient Biblical command "Love thy neighbor as thyself,, which is derived from the Hebrew verses: "But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:34) and continues to be an essential feature of Christianity. Puiu plays splendidly with the complexities of this commandment, which establishes the proper relation of human beings to one another, modeled on the relation of human beings to God. The very logic of this directive suggests that the love we should have for our neighbors is identical to the love God has for us--complete and perfect. Love for God equals love for humankind. But the ethos of neighborly love is certainly intricate and difficult in the story. This meticulous problematization is one of the virtues of Puiu's film and, as this essay argues, its force comes primarily from the exceptional mastery of the film's mise-en-scene.