Who's in It: Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminita Gheorghiu
The Basics: Mix one part Kafka, one part Dante's Inferno, one part ER and one part detached documentary, and you get this grim, frostbitten, bleaker-than-black comedy about an old drunk guy with a subdural hematoma and his protracted, helpless ambulance ride to Grim Reaper Memorial Hospital.
What's the Deal? Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that it's a Romanian movie about a 63-year-old alcoholic with a subdural hematoma. This is the former Soviet medical system we're talking about. You think you have it rough waiting for six hours in the county hospital emergency room? Then check out this movie. It's a bone-chilling adventure and the most hypochondria-inducing valentine to imminent demise you'll ever see.
Perhaps "Adventure" Is Too Strong a Word: Because it's a movie about nothing happening to this guy, a lot of nothing is what happens. And he grows sicker and more delirious and incapacitated with every clock tick. But the joke's on him, see, because the worse he gets, the more surly and unhelpful the medical professionals around him become. Fun!
Pedigree: Won the "Un Certain Regard" award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
How Long, Oh Lord? Two hours, 35 minutes. So buck up and make yourself comfortable, because doom takes its time.