It takes a special kind of actor to dominate the screen in a role that requires him to remain physically prone and grow increasingly comatose over the course of a two-hour, thirty-three-minute movie. Ion Fiscuteanu pulled that feat off as the title character of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the 2005 black comedy that stormed the festival circuit, heralded the resurgence of the Romanian film industry, and won Mr. Fiscuteanu the Best Actor prizes at festivals in Copenhagen and his native Transylvania. Now Fiscuteanu has died, at the age of seventy, reportedly after a bout with colon cancer, which was one of the hundred or so ailments that the clueless, distracted doctors in the movie tried to ascribe to his character in the movie. Fiscuteanu was best known for his theater work, but also appeared in a handful of other movies, most notably the 1992 The Oak. But he will probably be best remembered for his unlikely starring role as the luckless Lazarescu, a modern image of man's impotence in the face of bureaucratic indifference and neglect, barely mustering the strength to raise a middle finger in protest as he's wheeled through the exit door. — Phil Nugent
