Museum Hours
On the one hand a sad, poignant character study, “Museum Hours” is also a treatise on art history and a love letter to architectural wonder. Predominantly set in Vienna’s grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum, the trim story involves middle-aged museum guard Johann (Robert Sommer, making a gently affecting onscreen debut), whose quiet gig has allowed him to fade into his surroundings and observe the visitors in much the same way they peer at the artwork. It’s here that he encounters the distant Anne (Canadian songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara), a woman of the same generation who’s in town to deal with her cousin’s debilitating illness. But the connection between Johann and Anne is only one component of “Museum Hours,” which branches out to explore the crevices of the Kunsthistorisches and the ability of its contents to address a multitude of ideas.
Cohen’s discursive approach veers in and out of reality with a seamless rhythm. At one point, an inconsequential shot of the gallery turns surreal when the visitors suddenly appear naked, showing the paintings’ transformative impact on the spectator. At other times, the movie takes a detour into art history, using a discourse on style to explore the central themes. An extensive lecture by a museum guide on the nuances of Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel, with particular focus on his vibrant New Testament image “The Procession to Calvary,” draws out the details of the frame that stretch far beyond the beleaguered messiah at its center. Such foregrounding of seemingly inconsequential minutiae connects an aesthetic several hundred years old to the process of environmental submersion that defines Cohen’s approach.
Eric Kohn, Indiewire
106''
2012
Jem Cohen
Jem Cohen
Peter Roehsler
Jem Cohen
Marc Vives
Gravity Hill
KGP Kranzelbinder Gabriele Production
Little Magnet Films
Bobby Sommer
Ela Piplits
Mary Margaret
O’Hara
20th Festival on Wheels
A Day at the Museum