A Meta Movie

The Cleveland Museum of Art is getting meta by showing an art film about an art museum at the art museum. Tonight, CMA shows Austrian filmmaker Johannes Holzhausen’s latest documentary, The Great Museum. Shot over two years and squeezed into 90 minutes, the film follows historians, curators and miscellaneous staff of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna as they restore masterpieces. The film is a lot like other European flicks, quiet and quirky with plenty of wide, symmetrical shots. What sets The Great Museum apart from other documentaries, aside from its need for subtitles, is that there are no off-screen interviews. There are no interviews or music at all in fact. Instead, the viewer feels like a fly on the wall of the featured museum, immersed in the quiet lives of the men and women who dedicate their time resuscitating centuries-old paintings. It shows tonight at 7 p.m. and again on Friday night. Tickets are $9. (Rees)