Museum Hours

Johann is a guard at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. For years he has sat in the same rooms, watched the same paintings, and watched the visitors. One day he meets Anne, a Canadian woman whose cousin is in hospital and who knows nobody in the city. They start talking. Johann shows her Vienna: the museum, the streets, the bars. No romance forms between them and nobody expects one. Jem Cohen's film sits between fiction and documentary. The narrative builds no plot; the paintings in the museum, particularly the Bruegel room, become its second subject, and a long talk by an art historian settles at its centre. Bobby Sommer plays Johann and the musician Mary Margaret O'Hara plays Anne. The city scenes appear largely to have been shot in real places without permits. Who it's for: Viewers who like slow cinema, narratives about art, and portraits of a city. Who it's not for: Almost nothing happens and the pace is very low. The art-history passages also feel like a lecture to some.