The tranquil beauty of Venice. Wait... what???

YouTube link. 

The above video features no CGI, special effects, or camera tricks (the ship doesn't cruise into the frame until about the :45 mark). Filmmaker Ries Straver shot the footage in 2005 on a trip to Venice, where in one day he witnessed no less than five of these luxurious behemoths coast down a waterway that is mostly meant for locals and tourists piloting rowboats and small-motor craft...

So I didn’t have a tripod; I put my camera on a little wall, which is part of this outlook, this post, and I just hit “record.” I adjusted the framing a little bit and it was a perfect postcard-like image. I just hoped the tape would last long enough for the boat to pass all the way through. What I imagined would happen actually happened, which is this cruise liner just completely raped that postcard-like image of Venice. It screws with your idea of what we all know of Venice. It completely changes it. And that’s why it feels so disproportional and abstract. That’s why a lot of people think it’s fake, even though there’s no editing, special effects, or compositing whatsoever. It’s just hitting “record” and then “stop,” and being in the right place at the right time.

Found at Vice, where there's a longer interview with the filmmaker.