Film
DISIRICT 13 p... . ,.
(15) 85min «0 . 1,.
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INTERVIEW
DEATH BECOMES HIM Tom Dawson gets despondent with Cristi Puiu, the Romanian writer/director of The Death of Mr Lazarescu.
Cristi Puiu didn’t enjoy his trip to Cannes with his debut feature Stuff and Dough back in 2001. The previous year he’d been diagnosed with Mallory Weiss syndrome, for which he’d been treated in an intensive care unit in Bucharest. 0n the Croisette he developed, what he calls, ‘strong hypochondria’. ‘I thought I had cancer, and so I only ate grilled beef and boiled vegetables,‘ he recalls. ‘When I came back, I was worried that I might have neurological symptoms, that I might lose my capacity for speech. I started searching on the net, and I went to see doctors who said, “Calm down or you’ll end up in the mad house!” I didn’t believe them, but little by little I recovered.’
Inspired by Eric Rohmer’s ‘Moral Tales’ series, Puiu and his screenwriter Razvan Radulescu began planning a cycle of six films, all be set in the suburbs of the Romanian capital, which would explore different notions of love. The first to be made was the magnificent The Death of Mr Lazarescu, a tragi-comic odyssey mapping the dying hours of a widowed pensioner, who's shunted between various hospitals on the night of a major bus crash. ‘I wanted to explore through this film my fear of dying alone,’ admits the thirtysomething Puiu, who studied Visual Arts in Geneva. ‘I drew on all the research I’d done for my own illnesses. It’s important that Lazarescu has nobody: his wife is already dead, his daughter lives in Canada, his sister isn’t around, he’s separated from his cats. Sometimes he has the nurse from the ambulance, but often there isn’t a soul next to him. That’s a fear that’s haunted me for a long time.’
Despite being metaphysical in its preoccupations, The Death of Mr Lazarescu is shot to resemble a vérité documentary: hence the handheld cameras, the long takes, the preference for eye-level, medium shots, and the illusion of ‘real’ time. ‘I wanted to induce a feeling in the viewer that these things are happening in front of your eyes,’ he explains. ‘I think it’s important to identify with the camera, not with the character. The camera here is like an invisible person, an angel, which keeps a certain distance from the story.’
Above all Puiu was determined to avoid ‘the cinematographic cliches of dying’, seen in those films where the stricken character makes an implausibly coherent final speech before peacefully closing their eyes. ‘I think it’s indecent to film somebody in the act of dying. For me the cut to black is the right way to end this story - there’s nothing more to add.’
I GFT, Glasgow from Fn' 14 Jul. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 21 Jul. See review, right.
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(PG) 88min 0000
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lhis Vibrant, bittersweet (ZUlWZ'tl‘, from ‘.'¢‘l|l(,’l director Jalar F’anahr iThe (Tirirle. Crimson Gold». has lll(,‘\.'llill)l‘y been dubbed the Iranian Bend il l /l\’(,’ Beck/rain, Shot on hand held digital Vl(l(3() cameras with a flyon-the- wall immediacy. and engagineg acted by its ll()ll-[)f()l(?88|()ll£ll cast. Panahi's filin tracks the efforts of various unnamed teenage girls to sneak into a crucial international qualifying game between Iran and Bahrain at Tehran's A/adi stadium, in a country where women are forbidden from attending soccer matches.
Despite the title. we don't see any on~pitch action in Offside. although we're conscious of the crowd's roars. groans. and chants, And these are the sounds heard by a half-a-dozen female supporters. who are detained by conscript soldiers and then taken to a holding pen at the ground. It is here that the adolescents. Including one who has braver disguised herself in military garb. verbally iun rings around their proVinCial captors. pointing out the absurdity of a system which allows women to play football and attend the cinema. but not to be present at a sponing contest.
Offside recalls the best work of Ken Loach. in that the humour and the social critique emerge from the predicaments of the characters. In one absurd and amusing seguence a girl is esconed to the gentlemen's toilets Wllll a poster over her face. in case she reads any graffiti, whilst her male escort haplesst attempts to keep the room clear of exuberant fans. The closing footage however of the Joyful. real- life celebrations of both sexes on the streets of the capital offers a measure of hope for Iran's future. iTom Dar/sow I Fi/rnhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 74 Jul.
DRAMA. COMEDY THE DEATH OF MR LAZARESCU (15) 153mm 00.00
Admittedly a two and a half-hour Romanian tragi-comedy about the final hOurs of a dying pensioner might s0und like a gruelling prospect. but writer direCtOr Cristi PUIu's The Death of Mr LazareSCU turns Out to be a
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DRAM/a FATELESS (12A) 133min coco
A superlative Holocaust drariia. front Hungarian cineriiatograpl:er turned director Laioc Koltai. based on lll’) fellow countryman lrirre Kerev", zerrii autobiographical no rel. The central character and narrator is a 14-year aid bey. G/urka ial‘i outstanding Marcel; Nag/i. who is "Juli/led up mth ‘eilox. Budapest Jens duririg the autarrir. of 1944. and who proceeds to endure SlifiiS Ifi three (Ll/Naif: r,(/l|/,(:llir;jll’)ll camps — AU‘QCl‘i.‘JIIZ-Blfl":l-EJEJ. Buchenwald. and Zeitx.
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