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The Great Museum

THE GREAT MUSEUM (Johannes Holzhausen). Subtitled. 94 minutes. Rating: NNN.


Johannes Holzhausen’s sumptuous documentary pays tribute to Vienna’s Kunsthistorische Museum, its staff – from director to cleaners – and its legacy.

Holzhausen’s crew heads underground to the archives, into the boardrooms where the executive committee makes major decisions and the workshops where restorers lovingly attend to hundreds of historical artifacts.

It’s the camerawork that counts here – there are no interviews, music or voice-over. Holzhausen has no intention except to document what it takes to keep a museum running.

That’s where the cleaners, landscapers and floor installers come in, as well as those team meetings discussing everything from the museum’s competitors to its logo to an upcoming visit from the Austrian president.

But most of the attention is paid to the scores of highly skilled restorers who diligently look for dirt, insects and anything else that might degrade the art, and make their delicate repairs with tiny tweezers and paintbrushes. 

The glorious building is exquisitely photographed, whether via a tracking shot that follows a worker making his way through the vast corridors on a foot-powered scooter or a spectacular overhead shot that showcases the elaborate wall sculptures while banqueters celebrate the 2013 opening of the Kunstkammer collection. 

But the hundreds of antiquities – and other art objects – lying unseen in the basement make you want to scrap those policies severely restricting museums’ art sales. Sell 10 of those precious things and you could do something about world hunger. 

@susangcole | movies@nowtoronto.com

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