★★★★☆ A beautifully observant, heartwarming and compassionate film, Jem Cohen's Museum Hours (2012) was one of last year's quiet revelations. After a youth spent travelling with rock bands across Europe, Johann (played by the reserved yet soothingly charismatic Bobby Sommer) has now decided to have his own share of 'quiet time', working as a guard at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The museum's Bruegel room is his favourite, where he always finds something new and fascinating in Bruegel's earthy, unsentimental but vivid depictions of the rituals of rural folk culture in the 16th century.
- 1/14/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Museums are odd places. People gawk, taking in the history and culture on offer, ruminating in silence. People talk, or, more often than not, they are talked at by guides or recorded audio stand-ins who give background to the pieces on display. Young people dragged along unwilling automatically become bored, unappreciative of the opportunity they’ve been afforded, while others soak in the space like a sponge, experiencing the catharsis of cultural and emotional profundity that can be provoked by a truly great work of art. Within Museum Hours, writer and director Jem Cohen manages to perfectly encapsulate both the marvels and oddities inherent in the museum going experience by framing a loose narrative of life and loss around the reminiscence of an aging gallery guard in and around the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna and the visitations of a middle aged woman from Montreal whose Austrian émigré cousin has sadly fallen into a coma.
- 12/31/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Chicago – Jem Cohen’s “Museum Hours” is a lovely, almost calming meditation on life centered around an art museum with someone who spends a large portion of his life there and a traveler new to the building. Great art has the power to comment on life’s issues – sex, death, parenthood, religion, etc. – and Cohen uses the power of the still image to construct a film of moving ones with power of its own.
It’s a deceptively simple film with deep things to say, buoyed by two great central performances, beautiful works of art, and a captivating rhythm that lulls one into consideration of their own life issues. At one point, our hero conveys the story of how noticing a frying pan in a Bruegel painting caused him to think about eggs and how he began to look for the round objects in other museum works. Before he knew it,...
It’s a deceptively simple film with deep things to say, buoyed by two great central performances, beautiful works of art, and a captivating rhythm that lulls one into consideration of their own life issues. At one point, our hero conveys the story of how noticing a frying pan in a Bruegel painting caused him to think about eggs and how he began to look for the round objects in other museum works. Before he knew it,...
- 11/14/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
★★★★☆ Jem Cohen paints an arresting and mesmeric drama in his first narrative feature, Museum Hours (2012). Comparable to the literature of Italo Calvino in the way Cohen has managed to produce a potent portrait of both the physical and the emotional, it effortlessly glides through art history, wrapped in the warm drama of a chance encounter. Unashamedly intellectual, Cohen has crafted a masterful piece of graceful cinema set amidst the halls of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum. We follow Johann (Bobby Sommer) as he whiles away his days looking after the portraits and landscapes that adorn the walls.
Circumstances lead Johann to cross paths with Janet (Mary Margaret O'Hara), who has travelled from America after discovering that her cousin has been taken seriously ill and now lies in a coma in hospital. After Johann provides Janet with directions to the hospital, the two become friends and begin to explore both the museum and the city together.
Circumstances lead Johann to cross paths with Janet (Mary Margaret O'Hara), who has travelled from America after discovering that her cousin has been taken seriously ill and now lies in a coma in hospital. After Johann provides Janet with directions to the hospital, the two become friends and begin to explore both the museum and the city together.
- 9/7/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The Great Beauty | About Time | Riddick | Ain't Them Bodies Saints | Museum Hours | Pieta | The Stuart Hall Project | The Great Hip Hop Hoax | No One Lives | More Than Honey | Jadoo | Any Day Now
The Great Beauty (15)
(Paolo Sorrentino, 2013, Ita/Fra) Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, 141 mins
Sorrentino proves himself a worthy successor to Fellini here, tracking modern Roman decadence with staggering exuberance and an eye for the stylishly surreal. Filling the Marcello Mastroianni role is Servillo's world-weary writer and socialite, who stalks the city's elite demi-monde of hedonistic parties, pretentious art, cynical grotesques and faded glories – but finds reveries and regrets around every corner.
About Time (12A)
(Richard Curtis, 2013, UK) Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams. 123 mins
A sci-fi element reinvigorates Curtis's trademarked romcom formula, but there's still a feeling of deja vu to this middle-class love story, in which Gleeson uses his inherited time-travelling powers to woo McAdams – albeit at a cost.
The Great Beauty (15)
(Paolo Sorrentino, 2013, Ita/Fra) Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, 141 mins
Sorrentino proves himself a worthy successor to Fellini here, tracking modern Roman decadence with staggering exuberance and an eye for the stylishly surreal. Filling the Marcello Mastroianni role is Servillo's world-weary writer and socialite, who stalks the city's elite demi-monde of hedonistic parties, pretentious art, cynical grotesques and faded glories – but finds reveries and regrets around every corner.
About Time (12A)
(Richard Curtis, 2013, UK) Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams. 123 mins
A sci-fi element reinvigorates Curtis's trademarked romcom formula, but there's still a feeling of deja vu to this middle-class love story, in which Gleeson uses his inherited time-travelling powers to woo McAdams – albeit at a cost.
- 9/7/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
A little bit like a travelogue, a little bit like people-watching, this is simultaneously a relaxing and invigorating cinematic experience. Simply magnificent. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
What a wonderfully strange and strangely lovely film! Canadian Anne is visiting Vienna, not as a tourist but because an old friend of hers is dying in a hospital, and she escapes from that horrible reality in the glorious Kunsthistorisches Art Museum, where she befriends guard Johann, who initially takes pity on her confusion about a city she doesn’t know. There’s no grand drama here, just two people hanging out, sharing stories and becoming friends as Johann shows Anne around the museum and the city. Spoiler! There isn’t even any romance. A little bit like a travelogue, a little bit like people-watching, this is...
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
What a wonderfully strange and strangely lovely film! Canadian Anne is visiting Vienna, not as a tourist but because an old friend of hers is dying in a hospital, and she escapes from that horrible reality in the glorious Kunsthistorisches Art Museum, where she befriends guard Johann, who initially takes pity on her confusion about a city she doesn’t know. There’s no grand drama here, just two people hanging out, sharing stories and becoming friends as Johann shows Anne around the museum and the city. Spoiler! There isn’t even any romance. A little bit like a travelogue, a little bit like people-watching, this is...
- 9/6/2013
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Images in Isolation: Cohen’s Meditative Hybrid Explores Time and Existence
Documentary filmmaker Jem Cohen makes his first attempt at a narrative piece with Museum Hours, which eventually reveals itself as more of a hybrid experience where the characters that have been revealed to us segue into constellations of the structure that brought them together. The film’s effect is much like a an actual visit to a museum, a stiff whiff of cultural pretense that becomes a sense of quiet awe and wonder as one acknowledges in this distilled space the magnitude of time and effort that has gone into the creations, the people, the practices on display. Of course, Cohen’s film manages to reach for a more existential level as a moving image that guides us into his film with a humanistic approach, and slowly becomes a piece of art on its own, turning Kunsthistorisches Museum, and...
Documentary filmmaker Jem Cohen makes his first attempt at a narrative piece with Museum Hours, which eventually reveals itself as more of a hybrid experience where the characters that have been revealed to us segue into constellations of the structure that brought them together. The film’s effect is much like a an actual visit to a museum, a stiff whiff of cultural pretense that becomes a sense of quiet awe and wonder as one acknowledges in this distilled space the magnitude of time and effort that has gone into the creations, the people, the practices on display. Of course, Cohen’s film manages to reach for a more existential level as a moving image that guides us into his film with a humanistic approach, and slowly becomes a piece of art on its own, turning Kunsthistorisches Museum, and...
- 6/27/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Title: Museum Hours Cinema Guild Director: Jem Cohen Screenwriter: Jem Cohen Cast: Mary Margaret O’Hara, Bobby Sommer, Ela Piplits Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 6/4/13 Opens: June 28, 2013 When you look at a bunch of grade-school kids on their obligatory trip to the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna, you may wonder what’s the point of the trip. Like American youngsters, they compete with one another in the game of who can look the most bored, or they actively make fun of the paintings. Some of the artistic creations do get their attention, specifically those dealing with severed heads as in “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” with a hoped-for follow up on [ Read More ]
The post Museum Hours Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Museum Hours Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 6/20/2013
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
Check out the poster for Jem Cohen's Museum Hours, starring Mary Margaret O'Hara, Bobby Sommer and Ela Piplits. The film from Cinema Guild opens June 28, 2013 at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza in New York, followed by a national release. Museum Hours is a mesmerizing tale of two adrift strangers who find refuge in Vienna’s grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum. Johann, a museum guard, spends his days silently observing both the art and the visitors. Anne, suddenly called to Vienna from overseas, has been wandering the city in a state of limbo. A chance meeting sparks a deepening connection that draws them through the halls of the museum...
- 6/19/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
The Cinema Guild has acquired all U.S. distribution rights to Jem Cohen’s “Museum Hours,” which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in August. The specialty distributor plans a 2013 theatrical release. Bobby Sommer and Mary Margaret O’Hara star in the story of a Vienna museum guard who befriends a visitor to the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum as they share their thoughts on the city, their lives and the way art affects the world. “Museum Hours” recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. Read More: Locarno Review: Lovely, Powerful Fine Art Tribute 'Museum Hours' Finds Jem Cohen Successfully Transitioning to Narrative Form “We are thrilled to be releasing ‘Museum Hours,’” said the Cinema Guild’s Ryan Krivoshey. “An exquisite film, brazenly different from everything else around it, it was the best new film we saw in Toronto this year. Jem has created something...
- 9/27/2012
- by Jay A. Fernandez
- Indiewire
This week's announcement that Olivier Père, former programmer of Cannes's Directors' Fortnight, will be stepping down from his post at the helm of the Festival del Film Locarno marks the end of brief but important era for this film festival, one of the longest-running in the world. In just three years, Père has helped to put the annual event back on the festival map, drawing an annual influx of celebrities and industry-types for red-carpet world premieres, jury prizes, and lifetime achievement awards. Perhaps more than ever in its sixty-six-year history, Locarno is an important station on the fall festival circuit, forecasting the slates of Toronto and New York and providing useful international gateway for cinema from all over the world.
This year's festival featured a characteristically dizzying mix of international festival ephemera, an Otto Preminger retrospective, and much-heralded appearances by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Alain Delon, and Harry Belafonte on the festival's main stage,...
This year's festival featured a characteristically dizzying mix of international festival ephemera, an Otto Preminger retrospective, and much-heralded appearances by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Alain Delon, and Harry Belafonte on the festival's main stage,...
- 8/29/2012
- MUBI
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