The Great Museum

A museum is not just the sum of all the artworks it houses. That much becomes clear when one of the greatest museums in the world undergoes extensive renovations. provides some unique insight into Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum outside working hours. We see the director giving a tour to high-ranking officials, restorers tenderly analyzing the uppermost layer of a Rubens sketch, cleaners polishing the legs of Canova’s , and exterminators seeking out stubborn infestations of moths. Like all museums nowadays, the Kunsthistorisches Museum has to consider the financial cutbacks when positioning itself nationally and internationally, and there are long discussions about the new house style and the museum’s role in society. The building, the artworks it contains and the people who work in it are all brought to the screen without interviews, voice-overs or music, and this makes the film feel almost as if it is part of the art collection. The film’s director Johannes Holzhausen, who himself has a background in art history, ensures these centuries-old artworks and magnificent galleries truly come into their own. The sense of privilege and passion felt by the people who work there on a daily basis fires our imagination, and behind closed doors every aspect of the museum comes to life.