Dream Boat

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source: Dream Boat

A huge cruise boat populated by young men ready to party and have fun in an environment of controlled frenzy. Sounds like the opposite of depression, right? Wrong! The interviews often dwell over sad or deep subjects but the real problem is the persistent aura of sadness that permeates even the moments that are supposed to be happy. The pacing, the color, the music... everything contributes to make this documentary incredibly gloomy and overall pointless, since nothing especially interesting or poignant ever happens.

Every night there are parties with a lot of semi clothed gay men. Some people party all night, we can only assume on some type of stimulants. Condoms litter the floor in the light of day. All five of the featured guys are massively unhappy. Yeah. I'll pass on a week like that. I thought gay men were sort of fun, Peter Pan sorts. Guess not

Having been on a Gay cruise I can say most of this film is accurate but a LOT of other points of interest are left out. But the main problem with this film is that the five guys it focuses on are just plain incoherent.

That was awful. Totally rubbish literally about nothing.

How can you have any type of expectation from a * trip? How can you search for a soul mate in a place made for sex? Why the need to dress up like a bunch of 5 year old on Halloween night? How can you think like a teenager in your 30's? This baffled me like crazy. Really unexpected discussions between grown people. Actually psychological undeveloped grown people.

This documentary tells the story of some gay men who are on board a gay cruise to discover themselves and their lifestyles. Some websites and blogs have portrayed this documentary as an expose of how gay cruises are not fun, and trigger insecurities of gay men. I think it is not true at all. In fact, this documentary tells how several gay men successfully understand themselves on a gay cruise. It is a documentary that is filmed on a gay cruise, but not about a gay cruise.

I found this documentary unexpectedly depressing. It is reasonably well-made, yet seems to encapsulate the exact opposite of gayness (in its most literal sense) with melancholy background music and depressed voice-overs discussing depressing topics. Wide shots show hundreds of dressed-up gay men partying and seeming to have a great time, yet nearly every man who is featured in interviews and sequences seems to be miserable (or trying hard not to be). The party scenes, which comprise most of the film, become quickly repetitive to watch, and the interviews and conversations ever more downbeat or simply dull. Watching this, for me, became an exercise in endurance. One which I ultimately failed, as I stopped watching just five minutes before the end. I tried, but just had to stop. It's strange to feel so low after so much "gayness".

It's hard to watch a bunch of guys in elaborate party drag walking down a narrow, brightly lit cruise ship's corridor underscored by a sad, Debussy-like piano soundtrack. There is a lot of this almost clinical detachment about what is being observed. Enough so that activities--which were probably a lot of fun for most of the participants--look sad and lonely, not to mention surreal. I have mixed feelings about this film. The detachment is the point of view. I think it masquerades as objective, but really, it's pretty judgmental. The slow-motion camera lingers on guys who are north of 60 decked out in feathers, or leather harnesses. You see every nook and cranny in their well-worn faces; any joy the guys are feeling gets scrubbed out. Is it fair? Sure. Does it tell a story? Yes. Is it interesting, and fun to watch? Not for me. The film centers on five guys from Europe and the Middle East, so, points for that. But. One guy is in a wheelchair, and another lives in Dubai. One guy is Palestinian now living in Belgium. The film seems to suggest that their life challenges are equivalent, at least from the perspective of being gay and fitting into the gay community. So it's hard not to feel that the filmmakers see their queerness as yet another handicap. If you're a Stonewall-era veteran like me, you may find this film pretty rough going. And for young gay guys--well, it might make them feel like voting Republican.