The Great Museum

This behind-the-scenes look at the workings of Vienna's Kunsthisoriches Museum veers from moments of interest to moments of boredom.

Director Johannes Holzhausen, himself a trained historian, frames events in a state of flux, an impetus to move from the old into the new. The museum is in the process of remodelling: paintings are moved, touched up, packed, and unpacked; cleaners dust, employees catalogue and shift artefacts from one shelf to another. A long-serving curator is on the cusp of retiring, sorting out personal books from ones borrowed from the museum. In a standout moment of activity, Holzhausen follows via Steadicam a worker making his way through the grand halls on a scooter, a quick and, more importantly, quiet way to get from one place to another.

As a document of the goings on behind the scenes in a museum, Johannes Holzhausen's stately documentary can't be faulted. The level of patience and tenderness and care that goes into the placement of models and sculptures is staggering. The beads of sweat that trickle down an employee's forward as he struggles to get a clockwork toy galleon working again. At one point a patron donates some family heirlooms and accidently knocks a military hat to the floor – the team rush to catch it before he has a chance to turn around.

What's less interesting are the meetings about budgets, the change of logo, and the increasing threat of the reopening of the rival Kunktskammer museum. There's a hint here that the museum will struggle in the future, as an auction sees its representatives frustrated as their meagre budget is outbid at every turn. A discussion about whether or not the presidential offices should have a private art collection peters out.

If Holzhausen had given the viewer more of what was promised with its opening and closing scenes - close ups of art and the truly magnificent rooms they are housed backed by classical music - The Grand Museum would have had a greater impact but then it would have been a different documentary.