The Golden Boat (1990)

The Golden Boat: Directed by Raoul Ruiz. With Michael Kirby, Federico Muchnik, Brett Alexander, Mary Hestand. An absurdist odyssey through downtown Manhattan with a sweet old serial killer, a student-cum-critic-cum-musician and assorted international bohemians.

“Raoul Ruizu0026#39;s first American movie is something of a parody of American TV with a few pinches of Mexican soap operas. Violence is treated as a normal means of interaction and it rarely has any real consequences. The film is structured as a series of episodes about Israel, a self absorbed young man who meets a Austin, a crazy old man who has just stabbed himself. Austin follows Israel before stopping to rest on a set of stairs. Israel, cool New York artist/critic/graduate student that he is, assumes Austin is dead and pockets his wallet. Throughout the rest of the film Austin periodically appears and people usually end up getting stabbed.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film is shot with Ruizu0026#39;s usual sense of experimentation but there really isnu0026#39;t anything new here, Ruiz seems content to tread the same old ground technically. The film is very comical at times and is always entertaining enough to be worth a watch but itu0026#39;s far from Ruizu0026#39;s best work.”