Our tour guide is Johann (Bobby Sommer), a gentle Austrian museum guard in his sixties who enjoys communing with the artworks and likes the contemplative pace of his job. In his younger days he was the road manager for a hard rock band, he explains in voice-over. Now he's happy with the simple pleasures of monitoring the museum, watching the crowds shuffle through, and offering assistance to the stray patron who needs a little direction.
Anne (Mary Margaret O'Hara), a Canadian woman who has traveled to Vienna to watch over a cousin who has fallen into a coma, is one such patron. She's adrift in city she doesn't know that speaks a language she doesn't understand. Johann helps her map out the way to the hospital and volunteers to help communicate with the doctor. This isn't a romance, mind you, simply a brief friendship between strangers who happen to cross paths and connect, finding the simple kindness and friendship of a stranger as quietly magical as the artworks on the museum walls.
Cohen, a New York filmmaker who has previously directed documentaries and music videos, isn't interested in narrative here. Neither performer is an actor by trade--Bobby Sommer was, like his character, once a tour manager and driver and musician, and Mary Margaret O'Hara is primarily a singer and songwriter (she's also the sister of actress Catherine O'Hara, which explains a few SCTV-related credits)--and they never appear to be anything but themselves on screen. By which I mean, they don't seem to be taking on a character so much as filling the roles with their own personalities and instincts and essence. Their backstories are minimal and their motivations secondary to the way they inhabit the present and interact with the world around them, responding to and reflecting on the both the artworks framed for viewing and the city around them.
As Johann explains his affection for the Bruegel room, the treasure of this museum, where he still unearths little details and figures in the paintings that he'd never noticed before, Cohen picks those details out of the canvas in a way that communicates how much more there is to find in each picture. The thread is picked up by a docent (Ela Piplits) leading a group through the Bruegel paintings as she asks the visitors to pick out the focal point of The Conversion of Paul, one of his big, busy canvases that teems with detail. The rather literal response points to Paul, a small figure within the swirl of activity, because (as the tourist explains) that's the title of the painting. The docent suggests some alternates, inviting the visitors to explore the canvas and find the multitude of figures within, all with their own stories suggested by their actions and dress and surroundings.
It's the single moments where the film explicitly states it themes and guides the audience through its aesthetic. Bruegel reveled in the earthy diversity of common people and their world and Cohen's direction embodies that spirit. He observes, meanders, muses, dollying his camera along with Johann as he makes his rounds in elegantly-staged scenes, then jumping in like a documentarian to capture snapshots of distracted schoolkids on their smartphones or tourists studying the canvases. A close-up of the carefully placed detritus in a painting is echoed in shots of trash on the ground outside or objects at a street market where Anne spends an afternoon browsing on a wet, gray day. This is a film alert to the moments in front of us, the rhythms of people between the dramatic spikes of storytelling flashpoints, the quiet conversations of people as they relax and open up to the sights in front of them and the experiences behind them. (My favorite detail is the wall of green-tinted Jagermeister bottles at Johann's neighborhood pub that, like the lives of the characters, is a work in progress.)
Museum Hours is an easy stroll through a brief friendship and the little conversations about life and art. Johann sees his city through fresh eyes as he introduces Anne to Vienna and Johann helps Anne come to terms with her dying cousin simply by being there. And along the way, Cohen offers a gentle class in art history and appreciation through the artworks on display that continue to reveal riches of detail and readings on each viewing. The world is place of inexhaustible offerings, the film tells us, especially in the corners where we sometimes forget to look.
It's in English and German with English subtitles for Johann's narration, and you can watch it with an alternate English language voice over track. The disc features three short film by Jem Cohen - Museum (Visiting the Unknown Man) (1997), Amber City (1999), and Anne Truitt (2009) - and a booklet with essays. Film critic and sometime-filmmaker Luc Sante offers a lovely reading of the film along with some notes on Cohen's working methods and Jem Cohen offers notes on the origins and production of the film.
By Sean Axmaker
