Museum Hours
Dir: Jem Cohen
2013
****
Jem Cohen's Museum Hours is a quiet celebration of simplicity, a calm celebration of the things that go unnoticed and a welcome antidote to societies collective attention deficit disorder. Our two leads are very normal but interesting people, Johann our lead man and narrator is certainly more than he first seems and this is why the film works. Johann is a security guard (is this the correct job title?) working in at the Kunsthistoriches Museum. It is a quite job so we initially expect a quite person and as quietly spoken as he is, he certainly isn't dull. Jem Cohen carries the film along in a rather hypnotic unformulaic and non-linear tone which feels utterly refreshing but completely ordinary. The story, if the film even has one, stops and starts and will suddenly focus on a painting or a discussion and then back to our two leads going about their business which many have found hard to understand even though it is in fact very life-like. It's somewhere between daydream and documentary and it's an experience I very much enjoyed. The direction is also suitably stunning.