King of the Cruise (2019)

Directed by: Sophie Dros | 74 minutes | documentary

Nowhere is the term ‘grey wave’ more appropriate than in the cruise world. Agree, there is the occasional young flower, but most with time and money are quite old. To make a point, the documentary maker only needs to shoot pictures of the aging, overfed cruise crowd with azure sea in the background – the opposite of Doutzen Kroes in an abattoir, for those who can’t imagine it.

Sophie Dros manages to capture the tragicomic sadness of cruise life well in ‘King of the Cruise’; she opts for the good-natured attitude of the cruise crew. And that is necessary, because her dreamed and willing protagonist, the rich man traveling alone Ronnie, is not a smiley face. Behind the mask of the American dream he seems to be living, hides a deeply insecure person who speaks about himself in the third person. At the same time, Ronnie is an exemplary type who explains himself: ‘I am a fairly interesting person’.

You have to watch for a while to feel any depth, because there is another trolley with food under sweet-voiced sounds. Just a little while longer and James Last jumps out of the set, also not good for blood pressure. And that’s where the seniors’ labamba starts again. Emptiness evokes itself, although a lonely cruise also gives rise to conversations. Ronnie has a dining table with 46 chairs at home in his Scottish castle, he says. ‘Wow’, his table companion replies, but you can feel that the two are looking for something else.

The ‘nobleman’ does not want to be addressed by the crew as ‘mister’ but as ‘baron’, a bit difficult because his pedicure does not know what a baron is. And so the ship sails on. The cruise passengers, and Ronnie in particular, are looking for connection, which they don’t find in everyday life. Not even in the sun with staff, by the way, and neither among the Russian gold diggers at the evening meal. Financial wealth makes lonely. Consolation offers the fact that there are more like this, albeit a meager one.