Kamikaze 1989

Kamikaze 1989 is an ambivalent film that manages to be both anti-corporate and anti-statist at the same time. It was perfect for 1982 when I was an anarcho-rightist skateboard punk. Today, it couldn't be appreciated by 1 in 100,000. This is the last of the great pre-Microsoft/ pre-End-of-USSR films that sought to reflect the hunger of the dawning information age. A bad phosphorescent TV look to the film makes it look fresh in our day. Fassbinder is Lt. Jansen and his investigations are predominately self-defeating - and that could be the point.

Disguised as a predator, Lt.Jansen is an amoral and voyeuristic, yet totally flaccid being. Tired and sluggish this detective only incriminates himself - but the Inquisitor he faces - is us.

I liked this odd movie - it is neither all low nor all high-brow art. It will probably put many to sleep - the violence is gratuitous and minimal, the main character is a walking dead man (interesting fact is that Fassbinder after dying in real life was BURIED in the costume of Lt.Jansen) - it has a charm that remains intact despite its pedigree as art-house junk.

This film comes across as a very ambitious project. It features Rainer Werner Fassbinder (only acting, he has no creative role in the project beyond that as far as I can tell) in the lead. It has appearances by Franco Nero and Brigitte Mira. Co starring is early Fassbinder regular Gunther Kaufman. The point is, the cast is pretty damn good.

The soundtrack is entirely original and is penned by Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream. I am assuming that was not cheap for the producers to arrange.

With a good cast, good soundtrack, you have what appears to be a good futuristic sci fi script. An antihero cop and his partner are called in to organize an evacuation of the building for the most important corporation in the country (or world, was a little fuzzy of how far it reached). The bomb threat turns out to be a hoax, then things get twisted and confusing. I'd describe the story has having half devils battling half angels except you can't tell if they are fighting themselves or there really is a certain opposition. The film ends with major events not appearing on film. In fact, the film feels like it's missing most of the third act before coming to an abrupt conclusion. You sort of have closure during the very end but the exposition is coming from a news broadcast. It could have been thrown on in post production just to save the project and get it rushed to release in time to still cash in on the international success of Blade runner (both are futuristic sci fi stories but Blade Runner debuted a month before this), or perhaps to capitalize on the untimely death of Fassbinder who died unexpectedly 6 weeks before this film was released.

Regardless of the reasons, you get what might have been a complex story, well acted and brought to life via an interesting plot and without the need for cheap special effects. Alas, you get the pretense of a good story and are stuck trying to piece together the events in the second and third acts. It's a chore.

I've watched this several times. I, like most I imagine, was drawn to this movie if only to see the type of film project Fassbinder would simply act in without much more creative input. The film looked like it was trying to follow the same approach of Fassbinder sci fi experiments like World on a Wire. Maybe if Kamikaze '89 were almost three and a half hours long to explain what the heck is happening like World On A Wire is then perhaps things would be different. Instead, good luck with the 106 minutes you get.

A movie worth seeing for none other that three main reasons: The absurdist exercise in retrofuturism. The drunkenly charming performance of Fassbinder. The colorful anarchism of a production design that rewrites all the rules of what was then known as cyberpunk. The movie with his unbridled and convoluted plot owes way more to William Burroughs than William Gibson. The satire, in this unique cinematographic experience is more a direction chosen by director Wolf Gremm, than a clearly defined series of remarks that one can extract or decipher in the script. It is certainly witty and doesn't take itself seriously but you will hardly find any classically intended humour in the short and surreal lines of the actors. However this is the true strength of the movie and what allows it, to stand the test of time.

First off, yes, you're right, this is a godawful movie.

Being a big Fassbinder fan, I rented this with excitement. Fassbinder stars, and he's always fun to watch. It's one of those punk-future-dystopian movies that popped out a bit in the early '80s, always good for some cult fun. It came out at the end of Fassbinder's career, and Fassbinder's whole 12 year filmmaking period only got better and better until his end.

So half way through I thought "what the hell happened? This movie is an atrocity exhibition."

Then I glanced at the cover, and in horror noticed this movie was NOT directed by Fassbinder. He just starred in it in a coked up narcisstic haze. I read he actually wore that leopard outfit he was giving in this movie on and off again in the last few weeks of his life.

Fassbinder was proud of this movie, somehow, and that gives it an odd charm. It's horrendous, but I haven't regretted watching it. There's a scene where Fassbinder climbs to a roof of a building, odd buzzing music is playing and the wind is blowing his hair and he has this perverse smile on his face as he gazes out across the city. There's also the ending where Fassbinder, bloated, in a robe, girates his body against a photo of an astronaut (I'm guessing this is Fassbinder's input, as the exact same ending pretty much is used in Stationmaster's Wife). These two scenes made it worthwhile. Otherwise, mark it off as an awful "Alphaville" rippoff.

1989, to be precise. As imagined by Germans in 1982. Germany has become the world's foremost economic superpower, suicide is a thing of the past, and everyone does drugs, except there are no nasty side effects anymore. An overweight Rainer Werner Fassbinder mostly scowls his way through a quest to find out who's behind a series of murders that may be linked to a new resistance group. Or something like that. The plot seems secondary to the outrageous costumes (Fassbinder wears leopard tights throughout the whole film) and scenarios (like a police discotheque where you can shoot on firing ranges). It's an ugly film, and a stupid one, too, but it is perversely fascinating, and worth watching once, if only to impress your friends.