Frankly, it’s surprising that more films don’t use museums as a backdrop. Or perhaps one should say that more museums should request the presence of a film crew, as a cinematic tour of the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum certainly whets the artistic appetite.
The tale of two strangers exploring Vienna – Johan (Bobby Sommer), a museum guard and Anne (Mary Margart O’Hara), a Canadian visitor – often doesn’t feel like a film at all though. Instead it has the air of a documentary. This is due to the fact that Johan’s inner musings are relayed entirely in voice-over, as the camera gazes round the gallery. There are very few pans and limited sweeping shots. Instead we spend time focusing on the paintings, lingering in a way that one doesn’t always have the patience to do in real life.
Both characters are shown to be alone, though not necessarily lonely. Though he clearly relishes having someone to show Vienna off to, Johan seems at peace with his lack of human interaction. It is Anne who seems to suffer more, the wandering soul down on her luck before she even arrives to confront a family illness.
The acting is so beautifully naturalistic as to be almost unnoticeable. When the pair discuss their lives in a series of dingy cafés, it’s possible to completely forget that a script was written. We could be sitting next to them, simply over-hearing a conversation. The incredible stillness of the film does make the length problematic – at nearly two hours, there are moments where it fails to hold the attention and 30 minutes shaved off the running time would have seen no loss to the meditative atmosphere. But it’s a small complaint, in a film with a sublimely quiet take on the human condition.