S eptem ber 18, 2013
ïl!r ]0ortlanò (Observer
Bobby Sommer in ‘Museum Hours. ’
photo by
C inema G uild
Museum Hours
Poetic film
offers a lesson
in mindfulness
I despair of conveying just
how rich and profound an ex
perience watching "Museum
Hours" can be.
The film will sound slow —
and it is — and tedious — which
it most certainly isn't. It doesn't
have much in the way of a plot,
and portions of the film are
spent listening in on conversa
tions between a man and a
woman in late middle age, or
wandering in the dead of win
ter through Vienna streets that
are off the beaten tourist track.
The rest is spent inside an art
museum, lingering over the
w orks o f R em brandt and
Bruegel and various works of
antiquity.
But if you are open to it, this
film — like a Bruegel painting -
- may quietly unsettle you, and
move you, and open you up.
Early on we are introduced
to two characters. Johann
works in the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna as a secu
rity guard. He muses about
what it is like to spend hours in
the quiet of the museum, ob
serving the patrons and sur
rounded by masterworks that
nearly always reward each visit
with some new treasure. He is
a gentle, watchful soul.
A woman catches his eye.
She returns to the museum se v -
eral times, appearing a bit lost.
It occurs to Johann to wonder
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J udge
"[wjhat [it is] about some
people that makes you curious,
while with others one would be
just as happy not to know any
thing about them." He strikes
up a conversation with the
woman, Anne, and learns that
she is visiting from Montreal in
order to see a cousin who is in
a coma. Johann kindly but
warily assists Anne with di
rections to the hospital and of
fers help in communicating
with the doctors.
The two strike up a friend
ship. It will not be a romance
(Johann is gay), but they share
a love for heavy metal music
and an enthusiasm for acute
observation. He visits the hos
pital with her. They wander
the museum, and the streets of
Vienna. He opens the city to
m Ji ix . i s
I ) \ ki i i \ O k I ix, \
her, thereby reminding himself
of corners he has forgotten to
savor.
Eventually the film settles
into a kind of reverie. It moves
back and forth between the
streets and the paintings. It is
as if the walls between the
worlds inside and outside be
come porous, and we begin to
move freely between the two.
The camera lingers over a stark
landscape, or skin illuminated
by light, and then moves to a
street or a weathered face
outside, as if to suggest that
one of the masters well might
choose this for his subject. In
one scene, the camera moves
back and forth between painted
nudes and a few ordinary-look
ing patrons — and suddenly the
patrons are nude too, and simi
larly unashamed.
It occurred to me to wonder
where this was all going. I love
art, and museums, and enjoy
watching people, but am un
used to such stillness in films.
Even as I was frequently
moved by the careful framing
o f each shot and by the
director's attentiveness to the
humanity of his subjects, I
wondered where he was tak
ing me.
An extended sequence in
the Bruegel room helped me to
sink deeper into the film's rev
erie. A docent guides a group
of patrons to notice Bruegel's
canvasses filled with humble,
working people engaged in or
dinary or odd activities.
continued
on page 16