Ship wrecked: HBO’s latest cruise tells about infamous COVID-19 cruise ship

Filmmaker Hannah Olson may be the only person to have two world premieres at South by Southwest without ever seeing her work shown on one screen in town. Back in 2020, Olson was ready to bring Baby god, his HBO documentary on the fallout from the revelations about disgraced fertility doctor Quincy Fortier. But March 6, 2020 did happen – the city of Austin declared a disaster and effectively canceled SXSW for the first time in the event’s more than 30-year history.

“The pandemic became very real to me very quickly as my first one was canceled on March 6, 2020,” Olson told Ars. “So at that point, I felt very strongly that I wanted to pivot … and I started to take a closer look at these people stuck on a cruise ship in Japan.”

Just like that, Olson unexpectedly started his second feature documentary even before his first debuted.

Two months earlier, in January 2020, Olson had traveled to India on vacation. Then moving across Asia, she quickly became aware of the uneasy spread of a new coronavirus across China long before the situation landed on the radar for many Americans. But it was the February 2020 reports on the discovery of this virus on a cruise ship docked in Japan that really caught his attention.

“I’m addicted to news. So every time I read a story, I look for the Facebook profile or social media profiles,” recalls Olson. “‘OKAY, who are these people?’ I started to lean on social media thinking, ‘Maybe if they were on the ship they were still posting on Facebook. Through social media, I started to find this huge trove of images – people on every deck recording their lives 24 hours a day: the crew, the passengers. I just started collecting and finally reached out to people to hear their stories. “

The result, Olson’s new documentary titled The last cruise, which made its screen-less Texan debut as part of SXSW Online 2021 (the film hits HBO Max on Tuesday, March 30). Built largely on an impressive cache of weird home videos, it’s a captivating and frantic first-person view of a very grueling month aboard the Diamond princess Cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan. This real-world horror exercise could very well be the most disturbing and anxiety-provoking ~ 40 minutes you watch all year round.

Dry land, please

The last cruise brings viewers back to January 20, 2020, when only four confirmed cases of COVID-19 existed outside of China. For anyone who has ever dared to step on a cruise ship, the opening scenes will sound familiar: older travelers making their world dreams come true on small daily excursions, crowded venues watching live performances, everything the world taking selfies looking at the ocean at night. .

Olson uses these “pre-times” to introduce a wider range of experiences than that, however. She not only connects with American tourists, but with Indonesian workers from the ship’s crew or kitchen staff, the Italian doctor overseeing the ship’s medical resources, a ship’s artist, and a pastry chef. All of these people apparently have their cell phones filming all the time, even if that’s just to say that they will wish their family and friends good health in the New Year.

“As much as this movie is about the beginnings of the COVID crisis, but also about how we relate our lives – people were filming and taking pictures all the time, the guests and the crew. So what happens when your vacation photos become intriguing points? in a real horror movie? “Says Olson.” What happens when your vacation photos are part of something bigger, part of an international story? [During production] I felt like I was looking at evidence – evidence the government seemed to know more than it said. I watched US government officials enter the boat in hazmat suits – well, okay, that doesn’t match what I’m seeing here [back in the US]. “

Without spoiling any of the amazing moments captured from multiple vantage points, suffice to say that viewers are simply there for the ride. The last cruise. While bringing plenty of perspective after the cruise or into the wider world would have been easy, Olson avoids sit-down talks with U.S. and Japanese government officials or health experts. Or, more precisely, she made these, but ultimately decided to leave such a detail on the cutting room floor: “I wanted the movie to mimic the feeling of being on the ship, and no one on the. ship only spoke to experts. on the ship had information, ”she said. “Other movies are going to do that. We won’t be short of expert commentary on COVID. I wanted this movie to be an experience.”

Because of this, The last cruise maintains an almost claustrophobically narrow point of view focused only on this ship to this point in time. Passengers, crew members, local health officials and many onlookers accept the terrors of COVID-19 in real time, a little bit of information by a little bit of information. Watching the film more than a year after the events, of course, gives viewers more perspective, but that only sees the utter lack of information and urgency unfold even more anxiety-provoking. The last cruise reminds us that concepts such as asymptomatic dissemination or maximum hospital capacity were not always known to everyone.

“I wonder how much people will be interested in watching a documentary on COVID while we are still living there,” says Olson. “As I started doing this, in February and March of last year, I kept thinking, ‘Is it too early to make a movie about COVID? We don’t know the end result. ‘ But I knew I would be interested in the origin story and that the first outbreak outside of China would remain relevant and have lessons to teach us. “

“It does not mean anything”

Beyond being a captivating timeline, The last cruise also shows that many of the biggest societal challenges COVID-19 has raised over the past 13 months existed long before. The uneven toll of this health crisis along class and racial or ethnic boundaries is literally rapidly becoming on the Diamond princess as “quarantined” really only applied to guests. Crew members share images and memories of still living in tight quarters (unmasked) and of being required to perform many tasks (and unmasked) to keep the ship operating while it is at the quay. The motto of the hokey ship, spoken HR – “One team, one dream” – becomes a driving force in the downfall of many crew members.

“We couldn’t just stay in our rooms; the crew had to keep the ship moving, ”says an American artist named Luke in the film. “Answering the phone, delivering medicine, doing housework 12 hours a day… We were delivering 3,000 meals, three times a day, to all the guests. We were in danger, but right now that’s all. that we knew how to do. “

The lack of transparency in the management of the virus on board The last cruise also mimics similar problems that would arise in organizations everywhere, from employers to governments to schools. It was not until the 23rd day on board that a crew member broke the ship’s policy of forbidding public speaking about work in order to highlight the unsafe conditions imposed on the staff. Medical officials appearing in documentary footage appear to give almost no context to people they approach, whether those people are showing symptoms of COVID-19 or wondering about others or when they might be returning home.

“It’s the whole experience but small,” says Olson. “There are rich people who stay in their rooms and the crew become essential workers, and no one has any information. All the news outlets were reporting from the start that the ship was in quarantine, but all the footage I saw on Facebook of the crew members showed them that they continued to live and work in shared quarters. , do not in quarantine. How can we speak of this as quarantine? It does not mean anything. “

The last cruise will simply horrify viewers with what is unfolding before their eyes while getting everyone thinking about the larger issues that this ongoing pandemic regularly forces society to grapple with. It may be less gloomy than most other COVID-19 documentaries that take audiences to hospitals or keep the overall death toll front and center, but it’s nonetheless a sober and shaken viewing.

The last cruise becomes available on HBO Max on Tuesday, March 30.

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