Museum Hours

Some may find the film underpowered. Not me. With elegant understatement, Cohen creates a humane testament to reaching out, whatever our habits and routines.

The film, a kind of hybrid between understated drama and essayistic tourism, approaches its subjects with uncommon patience and curiosity, lingering over objects and faces as if to savor their aesthetic qualities, eager to convey truths without authorial imposition.

Essentially an essay film, Museum Hours is less interested in plot than in using its characters as a way to give ideas shape and voice; however, because their performances are natural and improvisatory, the movie never seems didactic.

Blurring documentary/fiction boundaries, writer/director Jem Cohen’s film is deceptively simple.

The real strength of Cohen’s occasionally didactic drama, though, is in the way the film redirects your focus to the periphery and reminds you of the richness that resides there. It was an achievement Bruegel mastered early on. And it’s what makes Museum Hours its own work of art.

The film shows how quiet exteriors can mask deep interior lives, and how art feeds those lives. The view of art is richly intellectual, sometimes enthralling. But I confess, I liked Museum Hours best for answering a question I’ve always had: What is that guard thinking?

Part travelogue, part narrative and part art-history class. The class is what's best about this pretty decent movie.

I have forgotten how an art movie looks like. I am satisfied with this movie. It is good to see a movie like this after some time, especially after I was busy with Oscar event and nominee movies. Although the art movie is not my type, sometimes I get bored for its slow presentation, but sometimes I will be thrilled to enjoy those great visuals. Movies without commercial values are kinda bores me. Sometime intense scenes and inappropriate scenes turn me off. There are many people who love this rare form of the movie, but my interest in those movies depends on what it deals. This movie was about art museum, I like paintings and drawing so managed to enjoy it. This movie was like a documentary about an art museum from Austria. They concentrated more on art pieces to explain behind story of those. They just added a couple of characters in the movie with a story to start and end about the beautiful Vienna museum. Yeah, it worked so well, human emotions plus great fine arts, totally an awesome blend. If you ask me, I would say it is an another form of 'Before Sunrise'. The whole movie takes place between two characters, Anne and Johan. Mostly they talk largely about paintings and Vienna city. It is a kinda educational purpose where we can get information about the city and its history. You won't like it just after a watch, it will take time. Day by day you will begin like it more and more, that is how this movie is made up of.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

leaves you with your Interpretation of art as anything can be interpreted if considered art, like the world itself. Absolutely it precise to leave all of us with some same certain interpretations but then dives deeper and open for it. as our realisation matches to someone else in the world because their are definite set of philosophies, but yes its literature is a hard stuff.

I generally like artsy movies but this one was too much for me. The director of the movie makes a parallel between the beauty in paintings of famous artists and the beauty of common-day things around us. The museum scenes depict paintings of Pieter Breughel whose works I like a lot. When those paintings are shown or are talked about, it's the best part of the movie, unfortunately, the smallest part. Most of the film is Vienna in its permanent gloom. I have been to Vienna and I know it is a beautiful city but I would not have such an impression from viewing this movie. The story itself (or it's absence?) does not add much to making this movie attracting. For me it was mostly a waste of time and money, alas.

I, also, generally like art movies but this was one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. There is no plot and, although some individual segments are interesting, the movie is much too long.