The Golden Boat

Director: Raúl Ruiz

1990 / 83min / Digital

Released at roughly the same time as he was shooting the material that would become The Wandering Soap Opera, The Golden Boat—Ruiz’s first film made in the US—gives further evidence of the director’s preoccupation with television tropes of the moment, in this case telenovelas and American police procedurals. The unlikely trio of an assassin, a philosopher, and a rock critic obsessed with a Mexican soap star together plunge into a mephitic Manhattan where, to the strains of John Zorn’s original score, they’ll encounter a who’s who of downtown notables including Jim Jarmusch, Kathy Acker, Vito Acconci, and Annie Sprinkle. A tender time capsule, and an urban odyssey unlike any other.