Cert 12A
107 mins
BBFC advice: Contains infrequent moderate sex references and natural nudity
So here's a curiosity - a film which is neither a documentary nor a drama but which will have fans of fine art gushing.
Jem Cohen's movie could correctly said to be something of a jumble - a disjointed enterprise which is one-minute a low-key drama, the next an exploration of Vienna's architecture and the stunning paintings within the city's Kunsthistorisches Art Museum.
After its opening five minutes, Mrs W and I feared that it was going to fly over our heads.
By its conclusion, I was enthusiastically looking up the works of the Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel.
For me to write that sentence shows how much of an impression sections of the film had.
Frankly, art museums have tended to leave me a bit cold but I hadn't heard a guide as interesting as as Ela Piplits. Is she so engaging because she is an an actress?
Piplits is one of only three credited actors with much of the cast being visitors to the museum or people in a Viennese pub and cafe.
These are visited by Bobby Sommer, a veteran museum security guard who befriends a Canadian (Mary Margaret O'Hara), a non-German-speaker in Vienna to see her seriously ill cousin.
The pair have a polite rather 1950s-style relationship with the guard requiring nothing in return for his brief friendship.
But they are very much incidental to the beauty inside and outside of the museum and Cohen appreciates that by going into much greater detail about the art.
Usually, I struggle with films as abstract as Museum Hours. It says a lot that I was engaged as much as I was.
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: yes. there is a really odd two minutes when three museum visitors are naked. I still have no idea why.
Overall rating: 6/10