Jem Cohen’s first narrative feature centers on a museum guard, Johann (played with great warmth by Robert Sommer, a nonprofessional). He spends his days focusing on the stately paintings and sculptures around him in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Art Museum, and on the people who come to look at them.
Johann meets Anne (Canadian singer Mary Margaret O’Hara), who is in town because her cousin is in the hospital in a coma. Johann senses that she’s adrift, and they form a bond as he takes her around Vienna.
The friends’ gentle strolls never take on drama; small revelations are played like a tour guide murmuring in your ear. Anne never becomes as distinct and individual a character as Johann. The museum’s art — especially paintings by Pieter Bruegel — is a stronger presence, both provocative and consoling.
Throughout, we hear Johann’s smart, funny observations on his job. Yes, the young people are restless, but they like the paintings of beheadings. Yes, it gets boring being asked for rest-room directions, but he’s nice about it, unless you’re rude, in which case you get “the scenic route.” Yes, he notices if you spend a long time in front of the sex paintings.
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?