Kamikaze '89

Made in 1982, Kamikaze '89 takes place seven years in the future and shows Germany as a utopia by then. A narrator in the opening explains that "German industry has solved all problems," with a government corporation controlling everything in society. They've made a number of odd rules such as banning alcohol and also making the growing of one's own vegetables illegal. They also control all TV programming and high-rated shows include a laughing contest, showing contestants literally laughing for hours on end with the public speculating on the winners. (That actually doesn't seem too far-fetched...)

All of this is handled from a huge building. One day a note is received with a bomb threat, and the entire building has to be evacuated only for the threat to turn out to be a hoax. Lieutenant Jansen (Fassbinder, wearing a leopard-skin outfit) is then given four days to find out who made the false threat. There are some people he suspects, one of which is brought in and subjected to loud noises as a form of torture but turns out not to be the guilty one. He picks up clues from others, as this film is spoken in German with optional English subtitles I felt there were a few things I was missing in translation.

While this film appears to have had a rather low budget, the best was done with what was available creating a retro-futuristic world similar to larger films like 1987's RoboCop . A better comparison might be 1980's bonkers musical fantasy The Apple which I've heard was shot in some of the same locations (I consider that a much better film, being a fan of musicals). There are many characters that are comic-book-like, such as one man who maniacally drives a BMW covered in comic book art trying to cause accidents, and a flamboyant character at the company headquarters who sings "Oh-oh-oh baby!" as he punches computer keys and talks on a phone modeled as a Superman figure, the receiver resting on his cape when not in use. As Jansen, who has never failed in his duties, Fassbinder portrays him as a bit worn-out and perhaps ready to retire. This reflected his state in real life at the time; he had a history of drug problems and died shortly after filming was completed. 

The film's atmosphere is enhanced with an electronic music score by Edgar Froese, the founding member of the long-running German instrumental group Tangerine Dream which scored several films in the 1980s. Oddly Froese is solely billed as the composer for this film although both his name and Tangerine Dream are shown in the opening credits. This was my main reason for checking out this film as I've enjoyed their music for a long time and have been trying to see every movie that they scored. While some of the music here resembles their other film scores, there are sections that are more sound than music which are quite interesting.

With the music score, Kamikaze '89's plot can become almost secondary to viewers who don't understand the German language and might thus possibly lose a bit of the narrative. It's one of those movies that's enjoyable enough to just look at, taking in the costumes, production design and action sequences.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray

Kamikaze '89 is packaged in a clear Blu-Ray case, with a movie still on the reverse side of the cover sheet. A booklet is included with an essay on the film by Nick Pinkerton and a one-page entry on Edgar Froese's music score by Samuel B. Prime. Upon playback, the disc plays a series of trailers which are skippable with the Menu button: Violent Cop, The Quiet Earth and Mad Tiger followed by a "sizzle reel" for the Film Movement label. A menu then appears accompanied by film clips and Rossini's Il Signor Bruschino Overture which opens and closes the film.

The hi-def transfer is framed at the European standard ratio of 1.66- as a boom mike appears at the bottom of the frame in one scene, it's possible that 1.85 might have been the intended ratio instead (having run 35mm film in theaters during the 90s, I know the proper ratio was rarely labeled.) While the print itself appears quite clean, I am giving it low marks because of several smudges that appear onscreen through the entire film. They appear as dark spots and are scattered around the screen, with the most obvious being a dot and a line in the middle of the picture. Without having access to previous editions, I'm unsure if these marks were baked into the original elements or not but examining a few scenes on YouTube from Fandango's "MovieClips" uploaded seven years ago show them as well. While I'm usually on the conservative side of using digital clean-up, it would have been a good idea to paint these spots out of this transfer had it been at all possible.

Other than this obvious flaw, the picture seems to appear as it was intended- looking a bit soft-focused with colors that stand out but aren't exaggerated. The Blu-Ray does not show any obvious digital artifacts even in the many dark scenes, which is a plus.

The mono audio mix matches the picture quality. it's encoded here as 2-channel PCM and stays properly centered with surround decoding applied. The fidelity isn't great, even the music score sounds a bit muddy compared to a CD, but with the quality of the picture and general atmosphere of this movie it works well enough as it is. Of course, all of the dialogue is in German which I understand very little of, optional English subtitles are included which help but I felt I was missing a bit not knowing the native language.

• Audio Commentary by producer Regina Ziegler is sadly one of the sparsest commentary tracks I've ever heard; she speaks in English but very briefly giving a few details about the movie, totalling about five minutes combined during the 106-minute film.
• Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Last Year documentary by Wolf Gremm (upscaled HD, 1 hour) is a filmed document showing some of Kamikaze '89 's production as well as Fassbinder's last directorial effort Querelle with candid production footage. This is presented in a 4x3 ratio with hard-coded English subtitles (all speaking is in German), the motion is rather jerky making it a bit hard to watch. It's encoded in 60fps and appears to have had some conversion done from a European 50fps source to ensure compatibility with North American equipment (a problem I don't have.)
• John Cassavetes Kamikaze '89 radio spots (HD 4:24) shows a series of movie lobby cards with director John Cassavetes giving rather humorous English descriptions of the movie, mostly laughing about Fassbinder's leopard outfit.
• Additional video-based trailers are also included, including one for this release of Kamikaze '89 as well as The Pillow Book, Full Moon in Paris and Once Were Warriors in addition to options to view the trailers opening the disc.

Kamikaze '89 is enjoyable enough even with a storyline that may be a bit difficult for English-speaking audiences to follow. Edgar Froese's electronic score is of course a plus. My only real reservation is the multiple smudges on the picture, it seems that at least an explanation for those should have been included somewhere. Worth a Look.