As a spectator one is left wondering what the film is about, as it's “a sort of Beckettian black comedy of anti-manners, involving New Yorkers who insult and knife each other and themselves and then return from the dead - ask the question, provoke guffaws, and never get an answer.

Several important artists on the New York scene took part in the film such as Jim Jarmusch, Kathy Acker, Vito Acconci, John Zorn, the Wooster Group, or Annie Sprinkle.

[1] The Golden Boat is inspired by American police series, mixed with Mexican soap operas, and immersed in the artistic context of the Underground Art scene of the early 1990s of New York.

In the street, a young student of philosophy and criticism at The Village Voice, Israel Williams, meets Austin, an old man hurt and desperately in love with a soap opera star.

Michael Kirby - Austin Federico Muchnik - Israel Williams Brett Alexander - Doc Mary Hestand - Alina Michael Stumm - Tony Luna Kate Valk - Amelia Lopes Production Design by Sermin Kardestuncer Art Direction by Flavia Galuppo Cinematography by Maryse Alberti Sound Design by Piero Mura Edited by Sylvia Waliga Music by John Zorn Associate Producers: Scott Macaulay, Dimitri de Clercq and Jacques de Clercq Produced by James Schamus & Jordi Torrent Written and Directed by Raúl Ruiz The film was generally well-received at its time, described as “somewhat plotted than the standard Ruiz pastiche.”[4] “Reality, dream and time merge in a vertiginous warped continuum.

Bizarre editing and no-frills cinematography make for arrestingly disconcerting images that evoke a cockeyed alternative universe.”[4] J. Hoberman for The Village Voice: The least one can say for The Golden Boat is that it should show would-be purveyors of ironic noir how it’s done.

In addition to the requisite impossible camera angles and loop-de-loop dialogue, the movie is characterized by its bloody tableaux, circular structure, and pervasive hacienda music.

The locations range from a Bowery flophouse to Mary Boone's loft to a pink-walled Loisaida apartment, and there’s some superb local color: the garbage that stews some Soho alley includes a half dozen pairs of shoes.

The twisty narrative line is as smooth and nonsensical as the film's opening shot, in which the camera glides at ankle level through garbage-strewn gutters, following a trail of abandoned shoes.