If there’s a tougher sell than a Romanian movie by a hitherto unknown director, it’s a Romanian movie by an unknown director that takes two and half hours to tell the tale of a 62-year-old’s final trip to the hospital. Does it help to add that The Death of Mr. Lazarescu was the great discovery of the last Cannes Film Festival and, in several ways, the most remarkable new movie to open in New York this spring?
J. Hoberman
April 18, 2006