Kamikaze 1989
Entry updated 24 January 2017. Tagged: Film.
Film (1982; vt Kamikaze; vt Kamikaze '89). Regina Ziegler/Trio/Oase/ZDF. Directed by Wolf Gremm. Written by Robert Katz, Gremm, based on Mord pa 31 (1965; trans as Murder on the 31st Floor 1966) by Per Wahlöö. Cast includes Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Boy Gobert, Nicole Heesters, Günther Kaufmann and Franco Nero. 106 minutes. Colour.
In the Germany of 1989 people have no problems. They are entertained around the clock by a gigantic multimedia corporation, operating from a thirty-storey building. Police Lieutenant Jansen (Fassbinder), investigating a bomb threat against the corporation, discovers the existence of a thirty-first floor where idealistic journalists are developing plans to make people more intellectual. Their plans are never realized: the corporation keeps an eye on all free-thinkers. Fassbinder's very physical performance, his last (he died in 1982), is all that makes this worth seeing more than once. The rest of this playful West German adaptation of Wahlöö's Dystopian novel mixes sf and mystery elements with no great individuality. Fassbinder had earlier directed an sf film, the made-for-tv Welt Am Draht (1973). [JK]
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