The Movie:

Set in the dystopian future world of 1989, Wolf Gremm's Kamikaze ‘89 (which was made in 1982) stars Rainer Werner Fassbinder as Jansen, a police lieutenant who serves the public trust in a Germany that has risen to the top of the world economic ladder. Life is supposedly great. Everyone is doing well for themselves, and everyone should be happy. But this Berlin isn't all it's cracked up to be. Substance abuse, even drinking, is no longer permitted but that doesn't mean it's gone away, only that it's gone underground. The country is controlled by corporations and the masses are more or less forced to conform. The media is controlled by The Combine, the biggest of the big.

This makes it all the more striking then that Jansen struts about the city conducting official police business clad head to toe in leopard print. When one of the corporate headquarters buildings, The Combine, is the site of a bombing attempt, Jansen hits the streets. His boss has given him four days to solve the case and stresses its urgency even though no one was killed. Right off the bat there's a murder at The Combine, presumed to have something to do with a foe referred to as Krysmopompas, a comic book creator out to shake things up. Jansen gets a confession but he knows it's not the real deal, he keeps at it, going about talking to anyone who might have a clue. It all seems like some sort of mad joke but once the signs start pointing to a man named Weiss (Franco Nero), Jansen isn't so sure. And what's with the hidden floor at the top of the building? With some help from his partner Anton (Gunter Kaufmann) he just might find out.

Based on the novel by Per Wahlöö entitled Mord im der 31. Stock (Murder On The 31st Floor in English), Kamikaze ‘89 would be the final role that Rainer Werner Fassbinder would play before his death at the age of thirty-seven from a drug overdose. You get the impression that Fassbinder is more or less playing himself here, he's a little pretentious and has a thing for excess, qualities that would seem to have mirrored his real life persona. At the same time, Fassbinder, like Jansen, worked a lot. His output was impressive (he made forty-one movies in thirteen years) if not always successful, a lot of interesting experiments tucked away in that odd filmography of his. Jansen has this problem too. Not everything he tries in order to track the case works, but he keeps at it. If Fassbinder doesn't show a lot of range in front of the camera in this particular film, he cuts an unforgettable shadow. His portly frame and greasy looking beard make him an unlikely looking cop when you think about how stern and tough looking so many American movie cops tend to resemble. Seeing him run around this ‘futuristic' Berlin in leopard print is amusing and is reason enough to watch the movie, it's quite funny. The rest of the cast is interesting too. Günther Kaufmann, Juliane Lorenz and Bridgitte Mira all appeared in their fair of Fassbinder collaborations so it's not shocking to see them here even if he isn't directing the picture. Franco Nero makes quite an impression too, popping up dressed in dismal looking army fatigues with one lens of his glasses blacked out.

The whole thing is fairly nuts. There is humor here to be sure but it is often very deadpan and very dark. It comes not only from the situations in the film but more often the characters' reactions to those situations, or lack thereof. Everyone seems particularly nonplussed by so much of what happens in the film that you can't really expect to take much of it seriously, but then, you never get the impression that you're supposed to. The use of color in the film can be quite striking, and the compositions are interesting. Berlin might supposed to be made out to be a utopia at this point in the future, but it's clearly not meant for us to fall for that marketing ploy any more than its populace. Gremm's direction is good, the pacing is decent. Lots of stuff happens even if you're not always entirely sure why. Jean-Luc Godard's influence is all over it, it's hard not to draw comparisons to Alphavilla, but it is its own beast in most ways. Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream contributes a pretty great soundtrack comprised primarily of off-kilter synths and oddball percussion. It's often times style over substance but if nothing else, it's very entertaining and genuinely unique.

Video:

Kamikaze ‘89 arrives on Blu-ray from Film Movement framed at 1.66.1 widescreen in a transfer taken from a new 4k restoration that is generally pretty solid. Colors look a little quirky here and there, sometimes brighter in certain scenes than others, but the image is pretty clean. Some print damage does show up now and then but it's minor stuff, nothing too distracting. Detail is typically quite good save for a few shots that have harsh lighting and/or softer focus employed. Obviously those scenes aren't supposed to look as crisp as the majority of the other scenes. Texture is nice and skin tones look good. The image is free of compression artifacts, edge enhancement and any obvious noise reduction. No complaints here! This is a solid, film-like transfer that would seem to accurately replicate the elements from which it was culled.