Museum Hours

The active mind having aged to reimagine engagement through interpretive fluid rapt multivariable impression.

A rambunctious youth clad in melodic calculi (managing and touring with bands), then ruminative middle-age embracing quiet illustration (monitoring different rooms in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Art Museum).

Living a thoughtful solitary life well-attuned to simple pleasures (Bobby Sommer as Johann), he meets a curious tourist one day visiting from Montréal (Mary Margaret O'Hara as Anne).

She's in town to watch over her cousin who's fallen into a coma, and would love to see the sights but doesn't know where to begin.

The film loosely follows their interactions as they travel in and about town, different features brought to life through historical exposition. It's not just the Kunsthistorisches that shines, Vienna's contemporary spirit enlivens as well, evocatively situated in past and present, replete with urban wildlife.

As Anne and Johann converse reflections on art evanescently materialize, not as if they're searching for essentials, more like chill jazzy random observation.

In fact it's like Museum Hours aesthetically cherishes the chill and random, as various images are freely showcased without a particular focus.

It's not presenting a specific thesis arguing for a point of view, but rather sharing different images to let Vienna thrive on through.

According to individual tastes, a clever seminar in artistic analysis attempts to lead visitors away from cocktail clichés, to more expansive literary compositions, as they observe different paintings, like there isn't an essence to be extracted but rather a variety of compelling interpretive exports.

Johann looks on in studious wonder as a guide imaginatively elucidates, her insights applicable to Jem Cohen's style which doesn't seek to blandly distill.

He observes that the right has made things much more serious, and made casual conversation much less prevalent, if the left loses sight of lighthearted argument, don't you wind up with The Lobster?

If the emphasis is on the correct interpretation of a shifting multivariable phenomenon, aren't such aggressive and violent evaluations highly dubious and irrational?

Taking absurd comedic outputs that clearly lack exhaustive scope, and treating them with biblical import, can lead to an unwillingness for people to participate in sustained and vigorous debate.

If they aren't treated with biblical import but rather as just another form of expression, then you have something much less frightening, and more amenable to inclusive discourse.