Critics love the artsy Museum Hours (it has a Metacritic rating of 83), in which a Canadian woman visits Vienna and meets a museum guard; I found it intellectually interesting but not emotionally compelling. The museum guard sits behind a velvet rope all day watching visitors peruse the oil paintings; he passes his time with mental games, like counting the eggs depicted in the paintings or imagining the museum patrons without their clothes. The woman’s last surviving relative, a cousin whom she has not seen in years, has become comatose and she feels obligated to visit her.
We piece together the essence of the characters from nuggets in the screenplay. The man managed unsuccessful rock bans in his youth, is gay, lost his partner along the way and now isolates himself by spending his free time on the Internet. The woman, who gets by with a series of part-time, dead-end jobs, is also socially isolated. They strike up a platonic friendship.
Here’s the interesting part – director Jem Cohen has filled the film with visually arresting shots of the bleak parts of Vienna, sometimes in direct juxtaposition with the artworks in the museum, allowing us to contemplate composition, subject and colors. In the middle of the film, a docent engages a tour group in a provocative discussion of Breugel.
That’s all fine, but it doesn’t make for much entertainment. There’s not much story, and the characters, while interesting, are not in themselves enough to carry the 107 minutes. Museum Hours is a worthy choice, but not a Must See, for art film devotees.
