L'ermitage

The Hermitage Museum, founded about 250 years ago, occupies such a huge physical space and has a collection so vast that this documentary can only provide a small sampling of the art and of the spaces it inhabits.

Sweeping camera shots whisk us around inside and outside the museum, stopping here and there to pick up an interesting visual detail. There's no chance that our tour will take in all that's worth seeing, of course. But the film persuades us that we're seeing a well-chosen sample. We get to spend a fair amount of time with the museum's director, a charming and credible tour guide.

Special attention goes to the work of preserving the art in the collection and to the museum's history, including the extraordinary measures taken in times of upheaval to protect the art, in one case packing up everything (a few million pieces) and moving it to hiding places in the Urals.

While it's too bad we don't see more, no doubt a personal visit would also leave us with the feeling that there's only so much one can cover in one visit. Given that limitation, the film does a really good job.