The New Rijksmuseum (2008)
At the end of 2003 the main building of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum has closed, in the words of managing director Ronald de Leeuw, becoming 'the most conceivable art museum'. The Spanish architects Cruz and Ortiz signed for the big design; in 2008 the modernized museum would open with a pioneering museum concept. Moviemaker Hoogendijk followed the first four years of what is called the biggest Dutch cultural operation in history.
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Perfect cast and a good story
I'll tell you why so serious
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
An enthusiastic account in the New York Times led us to travel for more than an hour to see all segments of this fascinating film. Agreement on "complete transparency" from the start (very Dutch) allowed the outstanding team to film all the characters through 8 years of deciding how to renovate a world-class museum and how to present selections from the 1 million works of art they own. You see a great work being restored and transformed on camera, a great director being done in by the cyclists' association, his leaving not to endure more frustration implementing his grand design, the passionate caring of curators for masterpieces, chasing after great acquisitions only to lose one (and acquire another), fatal flaws in who is responsible for what and what are the goals of the renovation, redoing galleries already done, and a final sense of accomplishment, despite all the reversals and compromises. Good subtitles.