The New Rijksmuseum (2008)

Until April of this year, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, a peer of the Louvre, the Prado and the Hermitage, was mostly closed for almost a decade, thanks to an extensive, expensive and frequently controversial renovation. That hiatus, during which some of the finest Rembrandts, Vermeers and other masterpieces of Dutch art vanished from public view, would most likely be forgotten if not for “The New Rijksmuseum,” Oeke Hoogendijk’s eye-opening, patience-testing new documentary. The film dwells on the logistical and bureaucratic details of the process, and if it does not exactly write a fresh chapter in the history of art, it stands as an exemplary study in the sociology of art administration.