"So afraid, not alone/ Hear the birds sing"

I'd never seen a Jem Cohen film. Amy was always high on him, and when I told her I borrowed his Museum Hours (2012) from the MOVIES section at the VPL and loved it, she said she'd never seen that one, but for a time (the early 2000s?) everybody loved Jem Cohen.

The film opens with a woman (from Montreal) on the phone relaying some heavy news, then asking to borrow money to fly somewhere. This somewhere turns out to be Vienna, where the woman has never been, nor does she speak German. A cousin she knew from childhood is in hospital there, in a coma, and she is the next of kin. The day after she arrives she meets a museum guard -- a gentle, likeable, philosophical man in his later sixties -- who takes an interest in her and helps her communicate with doctors, nurses and hospital administrators. When not visiting the hospital, they take walks, talk about paintings, go to bars, and even visit the Seegrotte in Hinterbrühl, a day trip that coincides with the cousin's passing. 

The woman in question immediately looked familiar. At first I thought she was Georgina Spelvin, but only if the film was made 20 years earlier. And then she started singing, and of course -- it's Mary Margaret O'Hara! Singing "Never, No"!