Museum Hours

In this documentary-fiction hybrid, a guard (Sommer) at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum strikes up a friendship with a lonely Canadian tourist (O’Hara) present in the city to visit her estranged cousin in a coma. Though there is this narrative through-line, Museum Hours is more a collection of diary musings on larger issues of culture, perspective, art and its relation to life, and the inevitability that all things will fade. The closest comparison might be to say it’s like a non-romantic cut of Before Sunrise blended with Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil.

The pair’s conversations and personal musings overlap with beautifully composed visual tours of both the museum’s artworks and the city outside, particularly the more neglected architecture and facets of Vienna. This may make Museum Hours sound like some mannered sermon, but it is in fact one of the most peaceful, bittersweet and uniquely comforting films of late. [Josh Slater-Williams]