Film classic: “Kamikaze 1989”: Policeman as a wildcat

The detective of the future wears a leopard-print two-piece suit. No one but Rainer Werner Fassbinder could credibly pull off such a suit as a second skin. As Inspector Jansen in the futuristic crime film "Kamikaze 1989," he doesn't even take off his leopard-print jacket to play squash, and even dabs the sweat from his forehead after a chase with a wild-animal-print handkerchief.

The rest of the film's production, which can be seen in the Arte media library until August 28, revels in similarly extroverted visions of the future. Starting in 1982, director Wolf Gremm envisioned a Federal Republic of Germany that is "the richest country on earth, industry has solved all its problems, everything is green," as a narrator's voice enthuses at the beginning. Environmental pollution, energy problems, and inflation no longer exist. Drugs and alcohol are also prohibited. The good mood—and all the information on television and in the press—is provided by a single corporation that also otherwise controls all the country's destinies. Jansen will discover how far its influence extends into all spheres of society in the course of his investigation.

The basic idea for this film comes from the pen of Swedish author Per Wahlöö. In his crime novel "Murder on the 31st Floor," the Marxist Wahlöö, known for his socially critical works, imagined the grim future of his homeland. Director Gremm quickly moves away from the Swede's classic investigation plot (for those who want to draw a comparison, we recommend the crime podcast "Kein Mucks" from June 12th, which presents the work in its entirety as a radio play from 1982, with a fantastic introduction by Bastian Pastewka). In "Kamikaze 1989," Fassbinder, while investigating a bomb threat against a major corporation, uncovers the identity of an anarchist group and quickly finds himself embroiled in wild shootouts and chases.

Two cities served as backdrops, stitched together in the editing room to create the German metropolis of the future. In Düsseldorf, Gremm's film crew found a skyscraper that actually had 31 floors (a rarity in West Germany at the time) and filmed its glass facade as the headquarters of the all-powerful media octopus. The brutalist concrete worlds in which Fassbinder's Inspector Jansen lives and spends most of his time were filmed in Berlin. The tunnels and motorway sections for the angular cars to race through were also found here. The aesthetics of the sets alone provide clues that not everything in this world is as smooth and green as the official mouthpieces would like it to be. The hallways are gray, the paint is peeling from the walls, and the police wear their surveillance equipment in the form of miniature cameras on their ring fingers. Fassbinder holds his ringed hand at face level during interrogations in order to credibly capture the right "camera angle." Otherwise, he plays his Jansen with resigned gentleness, and in his admonitions to the witnesses being questioned (“Avoid superfluous remarks”) and also to his colleagues criticizing the system (“You should not repeat this statement”), one never knows for sure whether he is only playing the opportunist in order to ward off critical glances into his private life.

The complete opposite of this is Jansen's subordinate, MK1 Anton, played by Günther Kaufmann. Kaufmann, one of the few Black actors in West Germany in the 1980s, met Fassbinder during a Brecht production in 1969 and later appeared in several of his films. He embodies critical reason in this crime thriller, for example when he comments on nighttime mass arrests to his superior: "We ban alcohol because it makes people aggressive. Then we create living conditions that force people to get senseless drunk. And then we beat them half to death for it." The inspector admonishes him. The fact that he himself doesn't like the media corporation's cheerful, constant noise is evident from his annoyed glance at the screen in the company elevator. The entertainment program shows people giggling madly, competing with each other to see who can laugh the longest.

For all its over-the-top appeal, from the costumes (burglars wear suspenders, police officers wear rouge and lipstick) to the squeaking electronic sounds of Tangerine Dream's Edgar Froese, "Kamikaze 1989" remains a worthwhile historical monument. At the very latest, when Fassbinder meets Franco Nero, one senses the mutual respect between the two artists. Fassbinder is said to have become quite shy in the presence of the Italian. The performance was his last; he died shortly before the premiere.