The Great Museum 3 stars. Enjoyable look behind the scenes at Vienna’s famous Kunsthistorisches Museum. We were there in September 2012. This showed restoration of galleries that were opened in March 2013 so presumably this was being filmed around that time. In any event all very interesting and some beautiful objects being restored. We saw the intricate restoration work, got a feel for some of the people who worked there, the ever present financial constraints and need to keep the politicians happy. The film itself was just a conventional documentary.
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter 1 star. Hated it. Totally unsympathetic main character. Horrible to everyone around her. Silly idea. And all quite predictable once it got underway. Very disappointing. The 1 star is for some beautifully shot scenes of snow in Minnesota.
Manakamana 2 stars. Surprisingly compelling cinema verité. Nepalese villagers, mostly, travelling in a cable-car up to a temple on top of a mountain. It used to take them three days but now takes 17 minutes for the round trip. It looked as though people didn’t know they were being filmed but I suspect that couldn’t be done. In any event it was interesting the way people behaved. The first two looked like a Grandfather and Grandson and didn’t say a word. Three women talked about how exciting it was to visit ‘the Goddess’. A husband and wife – seen both coming and going – talked about the view and a bit about their family. They had a live chook going up and What looked like a boiled one ( you only saw the feet) coming back. Three members of a contemporary boy band – one with beautiful long black wavy hair that he kept stroking, while he patted a fractious kitten – took pictures all the way up. Two female tourists barely talked to each other on the way down. An old woman and her middle-aged daughter, ate ice-creams – that melted all over them – as they descended. Hypnotic.
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