Andreea Păduraru

After suffering terrible headaches and stomach cramps, Mr. Lăzărescu, a lonely 63 year-old man, calls for an ambulance, beginning one man’s hellish journey through Bucharest hospitals in search of proper medical care. As the night unfolds, his health starts to deteriorate fast.

In the Romanian town of Craiova, five hundred elderly people are passing their days in a home, for which they pay with their paltry pensions. Every day looks the same, every activity is predictable. Even the people‘s complaints are part of the daily routine. One of the residents hopes in vain that a lottery ticket will bring him refuge. For six days, filmmakers Andreea Paduraru and Cristi Puiu try to get through to these people, who are carrying their whole past on their backs. To the question what the best days of their lives was, nobody can or wants to give an answer. Nearly everyone immediately starts about the day-to-day worries and problems in the home. Finally, one woman tells about her activities as head of the research department of the government of Ceausescu, with whom she once had an argument. Another resident recalls his time as a soldier in World War II and proceeds to the order of the day.

A telephone repairman sits down at the table of a woman who is tactfully petting a puppy and begins to tell her some bizarre dreams. In a register of absurd comedy, the two analyze the young man's dreams.

Assembled like a diary page from brief moments of a couple's daily routine, the film encapsulates these intimate details in an asymmetrical opposite, in which her attention reflects his indifference.