KAMIKAZE 1989. Science fiction in a noir style.

Kamikaze 1989 will primarily interest seekers of forgotten cinematic oddities.

In 1989, the Federal Republic of Germany is an economic superpower. There is no inflation, unemployment, environmental pollution, or energy crisis. Crime does not exist, and all murders and suicides are euphemistically referred to as “unexpected deaths.” There is a complete ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol, as well as on growing vegetables, but marijuana and synthetic psychoactive substances are legal and widely available. The entertainment and information industries, along with all media, are controlled by a single media conglomerate run by members of one influential family. One day, they receive an anonymous tip claiming that a bomb has been planted at the company headquarters. The alarm turns out to be false, but despite resistance from the consortium’s leadership, the police assign Lieutenant Jansen to investigate. The detective soon discovers that the case is connected to the corporation’s 31st floor and a mysterious anarchist named Krysmopompas.

Kamikaze 1989 is an adaptation of Murder on the 31st Floor, a novel by Per Wahlöö—a Swedish journalist and writer best known for co-creating, alongside his longtime partner Maj Sjöwall, the Martin Beck crime series. This literary duo is considered the forerunners of Scandinavian crime fiction (Nordic noir), often described as the “godparents” of authors like Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbø, and Henning Mankell. Drawing on their journalism experience, Wahlöö and Sjöwall emphasized realistic depictions of painstaking police procedures. At the same time, their books showcased an overtly left-wing worldview and a scathing critique of Swedish social democracy and the police, viewed as tools of an oppressive capitalist state. In their novels, criminals were often victims of social injustice or even righteous rebels fighting against an authoritarian system of oppression and exploitation.

Much of this is also present in Murder on the 31st Floor, published in 1964. The novel’s vision of the future feels unsettlingly relevant today: particularly striking are themes of information flow being strictly controlled and monopolized by a nepotistic media conglomerate in alliance with populist politicians, the proliferation of mind-numbing, escapist entertainment, and the cultivation of obedient, thoughtless citizens fed a steady diet of narcotics and propaganda. However, screenwriters Robert Katz and Wolf Gremm (who also directed Kamikaze 1989), creators of the film’s third adaptation—following the Soviet TV films 31 otdel (1972) by Yuri Aksyonov and 31. osakonna hukk (1981) by Peeter Urbla—transformed Wahlöö’s dark political dystopia into an absurd science fiction film with elements of black comedy and film noir. The humor significantly softened and diluted the novel’s anti-corporate and anti-government message.

As a result, Kamikaze 1989 feels like a pastiche or even a parody of science fiction mixed with a procedural thriller. This impression is reinforced by the mannered acting of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who plays Jansen. His detective is almost a caricature of a classic noir antihero: a cynical, sweaty drunk with a weary, unshaven face, greasy hair, and a cigarette perpetually hanging from the corner of his mouth. An amoral loner who communicates in terse, sarcastic remarks (“Refrain from unnecessary comments!”), he forgoes the traditional rumpled trench coat in favor of a garish leopard-print outfit. Fassbinder plays him as if in a drunken stupor or sleepwalking—it’s difficult to tell whether this was intentional or simply a side effect of the legendary German filmmaker’s self-destructive lifestyle. Just five weeks before Kamikaze 1989 premiered, Fassbinder died from an overdose of cocaine and barbiturates.

Key themes from Wahlöö’s novel are buried beneath layers of crude humor and over-stylized, music-video-like sequences reminiscent of Culture Club aesthetics. The film’s stylistic approach evokes a television production and betrays its low-budget nature. It belongs to the kind of retro-futuristic mishmash where a blend of modernist architecture, flashy fashion, neon lights, and electronic music (the soundtrack was composed by Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream) is meant to represent the world of the future. This aesthetic has its charm, but it cannot conceal the film’s weak plot and intellectual shallowness. Had the filmmakers remained more faithful to the novel and not sacrificed its philosophical depth for second-rate entertainment, Kamikaze 1989 might have been something akin to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville (1966) or the works of William S. Burroughs—an intriguing analysis of technocratic dictatorship and mechanisms of social control.